


Bright Side

by tookumade



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Falling In Love, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-03-05 03:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 19,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3104165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tookumade/pseuds/tookumade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matsukawa wakes up one day with a name written permanently onto his left wrist, and no idea how it happened. A few years pass, and he finally meets the owner of the name - and things are about to get a whole lot more complicated from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Matsukawa

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo... like it says in the tags and summary, this is a soulmates AU where Matsukawa and Hanamaki meet for the first time in college. \o/ The fic's chapters will be fairly short... just like my attention-span for anything else non-MatsuHana related these days. I have sunk so deep.  
> Hope you enjoy it!

Matsukawa woke up one day with two kanji written on his left wrist, and he had no idea how they got there.  
  
He was fifteen years old at the time—less than two months from sixteen—and it was the morning of the 27th of January. It took him half-way through brushing his teeth to notice them and he nearly choked on his toothpaste, because what the _hell?_ He asked his mother if anyone else had been the house while he was sleeping, just in case it was a prank one of his friends from school pulled on him, but it didn’t seem to be anything of the sort.  
  
The first character was the kanji for ‘precious’, ‘noble’, or ‘esteemed’, and the second was the character for ‘big’ or 'great'. Matsukawa quickly realised that it was a name: _Takahiro_ , they read together. But he didn’t personally know anyone called Takahiro.  
  
That was one of the weird things about it, aside from it getting onto his wrist in ways unknown. For another thing, it looked like someone’s handwriting, but no one’s that he recognised. It was a scrawl more than anything: characters a little slanted, rounded corners at the boxes, and lines that should’ve been separated were slightly joined as though whoever had written them had done so in a hurry, and that their writing tools had trailed on his skin a little. There was also the fact that no matter how hard he scrubbed at them, the characters simply did not wash off.  
  
He started wearing a thick wristwatch to cover up the tattoo (he called it a tattoo because he didn’t know what else to make of it) because he really just didn’t know how to explain it to people. During his high school’s volleyball practices and matches, he wrapped sports tape around it and any time people asked, he’d shrug casually and mutter something about stability for the joints in his wrist. Even his parents never found out because how would he tell them? “I woke up with some guy’s name on my wrist, please don’t ground me”?  
  
His high school years went by and the strange tattoo didn’t fade at all. Matsukawa grew taller, more broad-shouldered, a little quieter. University was fast approaching and he still kept it to himself. He was used to the tattoo now, despite his confusion. Sometimes it was a source of comfort—he didn’t know why, but at times he just felt better staring at it or tracing over it with his fingers. Other times, he neither liked nor disliked it, but he was always wondering.  
  
When the start of university came, Matsukawa was swept into the flow of things. He moved out of home and into the university dorms because it was more convenient. His lectures and tutorials were busy and each class was packed with students, and Matsukawa being usually quiet didn’t expect to socialise too much, but at some point he joined the university volleyball team after being nudged along by two other students from one of his tutorial classes: Oikawa Tooru and Iwaizumi Hajime, who were best friends with each other since childhood. Oikawa was sharp-as-nails, hard-working, enthusiastic, and charismatic—a deadly combination in a good way. Iwaizumi was the same, but also different at the same time and with his feet planted a little more firmly to the ground. They made an entertaining duo and Matsukawa enjoyed their company, and they became fast friends.  
  
And then, there was Hanamaki.  
  
Matsukawa walked into the volleyball team’s first practice of the semester on Tuesday to find Iwaizumi in the middle of an arm-wrestling competition with someone he couldn’t see because he had his back to him. Iwaizumi was grinning ear-to-ear and the other guy was trying with everything he had to push his hand down, but unsuccessfully. He was swearing up a storm whilst Iwaizumi looked incredibly smug, and their other teammates were edging them on.  
  
With a shout, Iwaizumi slammed their hands down and everyone broke into yelling and cheering. It was pandemonium until their captain decided that they had had enough fun, clapped his hands loudly, and firmly told them to get onto the court so they could begin their first session, and the club members filed out. Iwaizumi, Oikawa (who was teasing Iwaizumi about showing off), and the other guy Matsukawa still couldn’t see were still hanging around so Matsukawa walked up to join them.  
  
“Ah, Mattsun!” said Oikawa when he noticed him, swatting away Iwaizumi who had him by the shirtfront. “Have you two been introduced?”  
  
The other guy stood up from his chair and turned around. His and Matsukawa’s eyes met, and Matsukawa supposed it was that exact moment that his life began to really change.  
  
“Hi, I’m Hanamaki.” He nodded a little at him and Matsukawa, by reflex more than anything, nodded back.  
  
“Matsukawa. Nice to meet you.”

—————


	2. Hanamaki

It wasn’t as nice to meet Hanamaki as Matsukawa first thought.  
  
Hanamaki was tall—a little shorter than Matsukawa, but Oikawa’s height and taller than many of the other team members—and he had long legs and powerful arms and sharp game sense; all good tools for volleyball. He talked easily and quickly got along well with the others, and had a warm smile that was part-smirk most of the time but it lit up his whole face and Matsukawa couldn’t help but stare.  
  
The thing was, though, that he did not direct that smile towards Matsukawa, and soon that began to piss him off. Not because he expected nice smiles his way but because of the fact that Hanamaki _stopped_ them whenever he looked at him. He’d be grinning and joking around with someone but the moment he looked at Matsukawa, his smile would fade and this set Matsukawa on edge, because what did he ever do to him? They had barely said a word to each other since first being introduced. Maybe he was annoyed at having his spikes blocked? Hanamaki was a decent wing-spiker, but Matsukawa had his job to do as a middle-blocker, and anyway, this was _volleyball_ , this happened _all the time_.  
  
It went on for a week and a half—during volleyball practices, study sessions with mutual friends, and the one tutorial class and one lecture they shared—until Matsukawa had enough and finally decided to confront him about it.  
  
Matsukawa was not a confrontational person by default. He supposed that he could be, given people pushed the right (or wrong) buttons, but aside from the rare scuffle during high school that he never started and barely remembered, he just wasn’t the type to pick a fight.  
  
So he wasn’t sure why he was doing this, why Hanamaki not smiling at him peeved him so much. It wasn’t like he was giving him the stink-eye or anything, he just… wasn’t smiling. There was nothing wrong with that, it was well within his right to not smile. But something about this guy just got on Matsukawa’s nerves and he didn’t understand it.  
  
He finally cornered Hanamaki alone just outside of the locker room before their weekend volleyball practice.  
  
“If I’ve done something wrong, then you need to tell me. Otherwise, what is your deal?” Matsukawa said with a bit more aggression than he was used to.  
  
“What are you talking about?” Hanamaki snapped.  
  
Matsukawa couldn’t exactly say ‘you won’t smile at me!’ without an avalanche of misunderstandings piling on him, so he snapped back, “You keep looking at me like I’ve offended you!” which wasn’t really accurate, but it was good enough to get his point across in this situation.  
  
He expected Hanamaki to shove him away, tell him to get out of his face, insist he didn’t know what he meant, maybe insult him. He did not expect Hanamaki to stare at him with a slight frown as though slightly confused and then admit, “I have no idea why, but you piss me off.”  
  
Matsukawa raised his eyebrows. “Are you serious?”  
  
“Do I look like I’m joking?”  
  
“How the hell should I know? What do you mean I piss you off?”  
  
“I said I had no idea why, didn’t I?”  
  
Matsukawa now looked incredulous. “That doesn’t explain a thing!”  
  
“Oi,” said a third voice. They turned to see Iwaizumi glowering at them. “It’s been less than two weeks and you’re already at each other’s throats?”  
  
“No,” they said in unison, and Iwaizumi snorted.  
  
“The captain’s wondering where you went, so if you’re done then get your asses out of here.”  
  
His gaze was so fierce that they couldn’t bring themselves to argue. Mumbling incoherently under their breaths and refusing to look at each other in the eye, they stepped away from each other and made their way to the gymnasium with Iwaizumi walking between them as though wary they’d start to get physical.  
  
“Dumbasses,” he said.

—————


	3. Takahiro

Things did not improve between the two in the coming week.  
  
Ever since that confrontation (and privately, Matsukawa didn’t feel that it was much of a confrontation even by his standards) they had taken to straight-up ignoring each other. They had mutual friends from shared classes with whom they sometimes studied together, though they got along best with Oikawa and Iwaizumi, who were quick to notice the tension and stony silence between them. Matsukawa supposed that Iwaizumi had told Oikawa about their brief dispute outside the locker room, because Oikawa didn’t ask but the look on his face said that he knew. The four of them were together often, which was odd given that half the party didn’t speak to each other or even look at each other most of the time, but somehow they made things work.  
  
(“… wish they would be more mature,” Matsukawa heard Oikawa whisper to Iwaizumi one day when they thought he was out of earshot.  
  
“You don’t know the first thing about being mature, dumbass,” Iwaizumi whispered back.)  
  
Then, there was a very strange turn of events towards the end of the week.  
  
It was a little past lunchtime, and Matsukawa was with Iwaizumi and Oikawa, studying in the library with their books and sheets of paper and various stationery items scattered over two tables, when Hanamaki showed up to join them.  
  
“Oh, hi Makki,” said Oikawa.  
  
“Hey. I _finally_ got out of my tutorial after–” Hanamaki checked his watch, “– _fifteen_ minutes of going overtime. My brain’s fried.” He pulled up a spare chair and slumped down as Iwaizumi cleared a bit of table space for him. “It’s so hard paying attention to old man Kano, he just keeps droning on and on…”  
  
“When you get him on a good day, his classes are more interesting. Otherwise, forget it,” said Iwaizumi sympathetically.  
  
“Iwa-chan, you actually pay attention in class? Wow.” Oikawa ducked as Iwaizumi flicked a small scrunched up ball of paper at him. They continued to banter in whispers, and Hanamaki shook his head and smiled a little as he pulled out his textbook and notebooks and tossed them onto the table.  
  
Matsukawa ignored them all and continued his reading… until the front cover of one of Hanamaki’s notebooks suddenly caught his attention with all the force of a hurricane.  
  
_Hanamaki Takahiro,_ was written in the corner.  
  
Matsukawa’s eyes widened and his fingers closed around his wrist with his tattoo. He had not known Hanamaki’s given name until now—never bothered to learn it, if he was being honest, because he really didn’t have a reason to except maybe out of politeness, but they hadn’t exactly been polite towards each other since the start. Introductions at volleyball practice had simply been family names and no one thought anything of it. It had taken Matsukawa three weeks, but now, he saw that it was the same ‘Takahiro’. The same kanji.  
  
The same handwriting.  
  
Matsukawa’s pulse sped up and he found himself short of breath. Iwaizumi and Oikawa were still bickering and Hanamaki occasionally threw in a jab, but Matsukawa barely heard any of them as the sight of the name burned into his mind.  
  
He had spent nearly four years memorising every stroke of those two kanji written onto his skin—every imperfection, every corner, every point where the strokes intersected, every line where there should have been a space… what was written on Hanamaki’s notebook wasn’t a perfect copy, but it was similar enough that Matsukawa was sure he wasn’t mistaken. On his wrist was Hanamaki Takahiro’s handwriting.  
  
He stood up abruptly and everyone looked up at him in surprise.  
  
“Sorry, I completely forgot I have to see the course co-ordinator. I’ll see you guys later,” he said with a forced calm and smile that he didn’t feel as he swept his belongings into his bag.  
  
Before any of them could say anything, Matsukawa dashed out of the library and didn’t stop running until he was back in his dormitory room, sitting on the floor and leaning against his door. He tore his watch from his wrist and stared hard at his tattoo, but it had become something so familiar that he really didn’t need to study it again, as though searching—hoping?—for something that could convince him that he simply _had_ been mistaken.  
  
He was not mistaken.  
  
Matsukawa pressed his hands over his mouth. His face was burning and his heart was beating fast but he knew it wasn’t from the running (although that certainly didn’t help).  
  
_Hanamaki Takahiro_.  
  
“Fuck,” he whispered.

—————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, Hanamaki's whole name in kanji is 花巻貴大  
> 花巻 = Hanamaki (family name)  
> 貴大 = Takahiro (given name, which is what Matsukawa has on his wrist)


	4. Issei

Nearly four years.  
  
Nearly four years of wondering who the owner of the name on his wrist was—if this person existed at all—and whether Matsukawa had perhaps sat next to him on the bus or walked passed him whilst buying groceries or accidentally jostled him whilst in the city, and never even knew. Nearly four years of wondering whether they would ever actually meet, and whether or not the two of them were meant to be at a certain time at a certain place, but perhaps due to circumstances, couldn’t. Nearly four years of trying not to imagine what this _Takahiro_ person was like, so that _Takahiro_ wouldn’t become a perfect romanticised ideal, but could instead be a real person with flaws and strengths that Matsukawa would learn to appreciate. After nearly four years, Matsukawa found him.  
  
And kind of wished he hadn’t.  
  
He tried to ignore it. He tried to keep telling himself that the two kanji on his skin wasn’t someone’s name, and _definitely_ not the name of someone he really wasn’t getting along with and could barely talk to or look in the eye.  
  
Ah, who was he trying to kid?  
  
It bothered him so much. He tried to act normal whenever he was around Hanamaki and mutual friends but he couldn’t really tell if he seemed different, and it wouldn’t have surprised him if he did. Looking at Hanamaki now sent what felt like small jolts of electricity back and forth between his wrist to his chest, and it was horrible and uncomfortable, and he was more on edge than ever. Twice he caught Hanamaki looking his way with a slight frown, which probably meant that Matsukawa wasn’t being all that subtle about it, and Matsukawa had to hold back an urge to snap at him even though it _technically_ wasn’t Hanamaki’s fault.  
  
“Why exactly do you not get along with him?” Iwaizumi asked him one day when Matsukawa was buying something to eat at the cafeteria. His voice was curious and not as impatient as he sometimes was, and if anything that made it harder to answer his question. Matsukawa couldn’t think of a good excuse because he still didn’t understand why they didn’t get along either. It wasn’t the tattoo that caused them clash in the first place, because knowing _Takahiro_ was Hanamaki had been a recent thing, but it certainly didn’t help the situation—if anything, it made things worse, only now it was more one-sided. He stayed silent for a while, but when Iwaizumi followed him out of the cafeteria and he remembered they had a lecture together next, he knew that was only going to get him so far. Matsukawa stared at the ground as he stuffed a large chunk of his cheese and ham bread roll into his mouth, and he shrugged.  
  
“Maybe you could start there,” said Iwaizumi quietly as they made their way to the lecture theatre. “It’s got to be pretty tiring being constantly pissed at each other.”  
  
“Did you mention this to him too?” asked Matsukawa.  
  
“I flipped a coin. You were first. Sorry.”  
  
Matsukawa bit down another large mouthful of his bread.  
  
He _could_ give it a try, he thought later that evening when he leaned back in his desk chair and stared up at the ceiling, having given up on getting any assignments done due to how distracted he was. He could try relaxing a bit and being slightly more civil towards Hanamaki. It wouldn’t hurt (much). They might even end up being… friends? Well, not likely, but at the very least they could be amicable(?) acquaintances, given that they already hung out sometimes with Iwaizumi and Oikawa. And, well, Hanamaki’s name was on his damn wrist, which _might_ mean something, so that was another thing to consider.  
  
Matsukawa rubbed his hands over his face. University life was _complicated_.  
  
And they would just keep getting more complicated.  
  
He arrived at one of the cafés near the university the next morning and as luck would have it, Hanamaki was also there ordering his coffee at the counter. For a split second, Matsukawa thought about running off to the café down the street instead, but for god’s sake, he wasn’t _that_ immature no matter what Oikawa or Iwaizumi thought (or so he told himself), and anyway, he had already decided that he’d try to make things a little better between them, so he steadfastly lined up behind Hanamaki and waited for him to finish up with his order.  
  
When Hanamaki was done and turned to stand to the side to wait for his order, he spotted Matsukawa behind him, and a surprised look crossed his face. Matsukawa nodded at him—baby steps, as he wasn’t fully ready to smile or greet him good morning just yet—and to his own surprise, Hanamaki nodded back. Small miracles.  
  
Matsukawa placed his own order and stood back to wait for the baristas to prepare his coffee, making sure he wasn’t standing too close to Hanamaki, who would probably freak out if Matsukawa got too friendly too soon. He tried to come up with a topic to half-heartedly talk about but all he could think of was schoolwork which was already discussed at length with their friends when they studied together. So Matsukawa stayed quiet and people-watched for a little while and Hanamaki stared at the menu behind the counter, both still resolutely avoiding each other’s eyes.  
  
“Latte for Takahiro!” the barista called after a few minutes, and Hanamaki went to collect his coffee. The sound of his name caused a swooping feeling in Matsukawa’s stomach and his fingers itched to close around his wrist with his tattoo, but he fought the urge back. He was given a much-needed distraction when very shortly after Hanamaki stepped back with his drink, the barista called out, “Flat white for Issei!” and Matsukawa’s hands could close around his coffee cup instead.  
  
He turned, ready to leave the café, but looked up to find Hanamaki staring at him, the expression on his face both stunned and confused.  
  
“Issei,” he repeated quietly, eyes flickering to the cup in Matsukawa’s hands, where his name had been scrawled across in hiragana.  
  
Matsukawa raised his eyebrows at him. “Sorry?”  
  
“Your name is Issei?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Hanamaki’s eyes narrowed a little. “How do you write the kanji?”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Hanamaki scowled at him. “Can you just–” Holding his own cup in his left hand, he used his right to dig into his bag and fish out a pen, and he held it out to Matsukawa.  
  
“What do you…” Matsukawa remembered that he was meant to try being a little more civil towards Hanamaki, so he shrugged and took the pen and scribbled his kanji characters on his coffee cup next to the hiragana: the character for ‘one’, and the character for ‘quiet’. “There, my name. What’s–”  
  
His voice died in his throat when he saw Hanamaki suck in a breath softly and his hand closed around his watch… much like Matsukawa had been doing ever since he discovered Hanamaki’s given name.  
  
Matsukawa felt his pulse speed up, not for the first time since meeting him. Surely not, surely there was no way this coincidence could go so far… but on the other hand, if Matsukawa had this unusual tattoo in the form of Hanamaki’s name and handwriting, who was to say the reverse couldn’t happen?  
  
“Why do you wear that watch?” Matsukawa asked quietly. His outward calm was the complete opposite of what was going on inside of him; his heart was beating so hard that it was dizzying. Hanamaki’s eyes flickered towards him.  
  
“To tell the time,” he said flatly, and Matsukawa supposed it _had_ been a stupid question, but before he could retort, Hanamaki adjusted the strap of his bag and turned away and said, “I gotta go”, before dashing out of the café.

—————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..... Y'all saw that coming a mile away, right? 
> 
> FYI, Matsukawa's full name in kanji is written as 松川一静  
> 松川 = Matsukawa (family name)  
> 一静 = Issei (given name)  
> (I really like the name Issei aaahhh)


	5. Tattoos

Hanamaki had left his pen with Matsukawa.  
  
It was a very simple and plain blue ballpoint pen, the type you could buy in a pack of ten for small change. Hanamaki probably had more like it, and Matsukawa could just throw this one away and it wouldn’t be missed.  
  
So why was he chasing after Hanamaki, trying to give it back to him?  
  
 _Stubbornness_ , that’s why.  
  
At least, Matsukawa realised it was stubbornness after seeing Hanamaki spot him when he was in the cafeteria, and suddenly turn his heel and run off in the other direction before he could say a word. It happened three more times during the course of the day and the next, before it became no-holds-barred _I-will-get-this-pen-back-to-you-dumbass_ levels of stubbornness.  
  
More importantly, Matsukawa practically _burned_ with curiosity to know what was under Hanamaki’s watch, because part of him already knew but another part of him was in complete denial about it. And it might have just been his imagination, but he could have sworn that his own tattoo seemed a little darker than usual, and his wrist a touch warmer. It was somewhat exciting but also annoying because this was _Hanamaki_ he was talking about. While Matsukawa tried reminding himself that he was meant to be acting nicer towards him, this new development had blown things out of the water. He needed answers, he needed confirmation, and by god he was going to get them.  
  
That was the only thing that kept him from simply throwing the pen at him when they studied with friends in the library or hung out with friends in one of the nearby cafés where they were surrounded by people. He didn’t want everyone knowing about the tattoo (or tattoos in the plural?). This was something he had to ask Hanamaki privately, and the pen, he supposed, was just an excuse to speak with him.  
  
But it was more difficult than he had anticipated. He couldn’t even corner Hanamaki at volleyball practice anymore because Hanamaki had wised up since that time outside the locker room. He avoided looking at Matsukawa whenever possible unless they had to communicate during a game (and honestly, Matsukawa was surprised that they hadn’t screwed up all that much), always made sure he was talking with someone else when they were taking a break or off the court, and was the last to arrive and first to leave. It was ridiculous how fast Hanamaki was and how well he managed to dodge Matsukawa for a week. Matsukawa supposed that the next drastic step was to find out which dorm room Hanamaki was staying in, but he wasn’t _quite_ that desperate. It was becoming more tempting by the day, though.  
  
“Iwa-chan has a lecture with Makki this afternoon. I could pass it onto him and he can return it,” said Oikawa in the library, when Matsukawa answered his question of why he was glaring at the pen as though it had stabbed him in the eye, whilst skipping over the details about his tattoo.  
  
“No, I have to do this myself. I’m not going to lose to that asshole.”  
  
“Mattsun…”  
  
“I know. You think I’m over-doing it,” said Matsukawa flatly.  
  
“Well, actually, I think it’s good to get fired up every now and then,” said Oikawa with a slow nod. “You’re usually quiet, so this is kind of refreshing.”  
  
Refreshing, huh? Aside from being non-confrontational by nature, Matsukawa didn’t feel he was all that stubborn either, so this was unusual. It was something that had built up ever since he and Hanamaki first met, and frankly the change was a little alarming. Much later on, he would look back and agree that this was good for him, that it was different, and he would realise (begrudgingly) that it was Hanamaki who brought out these two sides of him that he didn’t really see very often.  
  
But right now? He had a battle to win.  
  
(This probably wasn’t what Iwaizumi had in mind when he wanted them to talk things out, but ah, what the heck.)  
  
Matsukawa got the chance one Thursday afternoon when his lecture had been cancelled. He took a short cut through one of the university gardens to head back to his dorm, when he noticed Hanamaki sitting alone on one of the benches, a paper coffee cup in one hand and his phone in the other, and he thought _finally_.  
  
(If he had been in a less ridiculous situation, he might have taken a moment to admire the fact that Hanamaki looked so mellow, which was something he hadn’t seen from him before, and it was almost… nice. For someone who was such a jerk. But for better or for worse, that was not the situation, and he really did not give a damn how mellow Hanamaki looked at the moment.)  
  
Matsukawa walked up to him, approaching him from the front rather than the sides so that it would be slightly harder for Hanamaki to run away (he could not _believe_ he had to use _tactics_ to approach him, what the _hell_ ), and at just the right distance, Matsukawa tossed his stupid ballpoint pen at him, and it hit his chest.  
  
Hanamaki jumped and caught the pen clumsily. He looked up from his phone and his indignant expression turned to that of wariness as Matsukawa stopped right in front of him, and Matsukawa fought back the urge to sock him in the jaw. Instead, with gritted teeth, he unhooked the clasp of his watch and let it fall loose into his hand, and he held up his wrist so Hanamaki could see the characters printed onto it. Hanamaki’s eyes widened.  
  
“I’ve had this since I was fifteen, and I have no idea how it got there,” said Matsukawa shortly. “Let me see yours.”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re–”  
  
“You asked for the kanji for my name, you held onto your wrist when you found out what it was, and then you ran off. _And you keep running off, jackass_. So go on and tell me you don’t have something hidden under your watch. I’ll wait.”  
  
But by the way his heart was pounding, he really couldn’t wait. It was something that had confused him for nearly four years, and the answer was _so close_ , and even if he had to _physically wrestle_ Hanamaki’s watch off–  
  
He didn’t have to. Still looking at him warily, Hanamaki pulled the clasp of his watch with a soft snap, and it fell away, and he held up his wrist. And there, printed upon Hanamaki’s skin, was _Issei_ , in the same kanji that Matsukawa used, in his own handwriting.  
  
Matsukawa’s breath caught in his throat. “Holy shit,” was all he could manage.  
  
But Hanamaki was already placing his watch back around his wrist. “This doesn’t change anything,” he said. The click of his watch’s clasp was a heavy sort of sound.  
  
“I… of course not,” said Matsukawa, but he hated how quickly Hanamaki covered up his tattoo again, as though his name was something to be ashamed of.  
  
“I didn’t ask for your name on my wrist,” Hanamaki continued. “Yes, the whole thing is weird and makes no sense, and we don’t know what it all means, but I don’t believe in superstition and fate or whatever the hell this is, and I’m not going to let it define me and my choices. You shouldn’t, either.”  
  
 _What the fuck is your problem?_ Matsukawa wanted to snap, but he refrained, and honestly he didn’t really know why. Maybe because Hanamaki had a good point.  
  
“Don’t tell me something so obvious,” he said, but his tone wasn’t as sharp as he would’ve liked, and before Hanamaki could say anything, Matsukawa turned and walked away.

—————


	6. Heartbreak

That had hurt.  
  
Matsukawa was back in his dorm room and lying on his bed and staring up at the ceiling, with one thumb pressed against the underside of his wrist, over his tattoo, feeling the soft steady pulse beneath his skin. It had been nearly twenty minutes since his confrontation with Hanamaki, and he had his next tutorial class on in another half an hour, which gave him plenty of time to brood and hate the way things were turning out.  
  
He hadn’t expected to immediately become good friends once they saw each other’s tattoos, but he wasn’t sure he expected that same level (or more, maybe) of animosity, either. He kept thinking about Hanamaki covering up his name with his watch again, and there was an unpleasant twisting feeling in his chest.  
  
Iwaizumi was right: it was tiring. He was tired of Hanamaki getting on his nerves for whatever reason, tired of asking himself what he had done to get on _Hanamaki’s_ nerves, tired of nearly four years of wondering about the name ‘Takahiro’ and finally finding out, only to have it feel like a punch in the gut more than anything.  
  
If Matsukawa were to describe what he was feeling at the moment, the closest thing he could come up with would be ‘heartbreak’, which made absolutely no sense, because there was _nothing_ between him and Hanamaki that could possibly justify this feeling. They weren’t even close to being friends—they literally spent more time avoiding each other than actually conversing. The only thing they had aside from mutual friends and attending the same university, were the wrist tattoos, which was something they still didn’t understand and honestly at this point, Matsukawa was pretty sure they just didn’t care enough about each other to even try to figure it out anymore.  
  
So he really had no explanation for why _heartbreak_ felt so accurate.  
  
Maybe Matsukawa really had believed in fate and soulmates and that sort of thing—that the owner of the name would be someone life-changing in a good way, and maybe he would be life-changing for them. Now? Now, he just felt that all the moments he had spent drawing comfort from the name had gone to waste, and it weighed on his chest, awful and heavy.  
  
He also hadn’t been given much of a chance to make things better between the two before everything went south, and that was another thing that weighed on him: regret and guilt. If he had been less hostile towards Hanamaki when they first properly spoke that time outside the locker room, would things have been different? Would trying to be politer at an earlier stage have yielded different results? Would being less aggressive when asking Hanamaki about his tattoo just today have made him easier to talk to and less defensive?  
  
Probably. Matsukawa ran his hands through his hair and exhaled. He fucked up. He had to admit that; all Hanamaki did was react accordingly when Matsukawa had been rude and hostile first. He had so many chances to make things right, but he fucked up so many times. For whatever reason, he just couldn’t talk to Hanamaki normally. There was, of course, still the option of making peace between them, but–  
  
 _I didn’t ask for your name on my wrist._  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” Matsukawa hissed, pressing his palms against his eyes. “I didn’t ask for yours either!”  
  
No, he had had enough. He had screwed up, but Hanamaki had also made it clear that he wasn’t interested in being friends from the beginning, so Matsukawa would do well to stop this. _Maybe_ down the track, they would end up being more mature and more civilised towards each other, but for now, he would continue on with his daily routines and keep his cool and act like it didn’t bother him. Maybe instead, he could eventually fool himself into thinking that he truly did not care. That sounded like a good plan. Admittedly, not a particularly healthy one, but it was better than whatever was going on right now.  
  
Matsukawa checked the time on his phone; his tutorial class was starting soon, and he had to be leaving now. Thankfully, this was his tutorial that none of his friends shared. Good. He needed school to be a distraction.  
  
He pushed himself off his bed and gathered his textbooks and notebooks into his bag before reaching for his watch on his bedside table and snapping it back around his wrist, covering up his tattoo again… and he remembered Hanamaki replacing his own watch and the wary look on his face the entire time, and Matsukawa stood still for a moment, trying to suppress fresh waves of frustration and anger (and _heartbreak_ , a little voice whispered in his head). Something had to give. Something had to change.  
  
Later that day, Matsukawa handed in his resignation form for the volleyball team.  
  
—————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ;艸;) Why do I do this to you Mattsun bb


	7. Soulmates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I intend to keep each chapter of this fic fairly short-ish (this one is a lot longer though?!), it IS getting a little out of hand, and I'm adding a lot more chapters than I originally planned. And by that, I mean I didn't actually plan very hard for this. (´v`) Typical.  
> Anyway, THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your comments and your kudos! Your support means so much to me and usually make me melt into a hopeless puddle on the floor. (Once, my brother caught me covering my face with my hands and making soft squealing noises. Oops.)  
> I am so grateful, and it's been a lot of fun sharing the MatsuHana/HanaMatsu love! You're all just so, so wonderful and kind. Thank you.

Matsukawa found that he was really not at all surprised when Oikawa and Iwaizumi cornered him the next morning after his lecture, and showed him—looking slightly proud of themselves—the torn-up scraps of paper that had once been his resignation form. Before he could even begin to ask how they managed to get their hands on it, they hauled him off to one of the quieter university gardens where they huddled in the shade of the largest tree.  
  
“The captain ran into us before our lecture and asked us if we knew about it, so we grabbed it from him right away and tore it up,” said Oikawa cheerfully when Matsukawa opened his mouth to speak.  
  
“We could use more tall guys on team, and you’re the third-tallest, so the captain asked us to talk to you about it,” added Iwaizumi. “Are you mad at us?”  
  
“No,” said Matsukawa truthfully. He wasn’t even annoyed—slightly amused more than anything, but not angry (it was honestly hard to be around these two). Oikawa and Iwaizumi stared at Matsukawa expectantly, and he shrugged in what he hoped was a carefree manner.  
  
“Sorry, I just didn’t feel like it was my kind of thing anymore,” he said. _That_ was much more lie than truth; he enjoyed volleyball—wouldn’t have tagged along and joined the club if he didn’t—and liked his team, but the thought of spending more time around Hanamaki just seemed too exhausting to be worth the trouble. At least if he quit and put more space between them, he might have an easier time learning not to give a crap about this whole situation.  
  
“Is that so?” said Oikawa slowly.  
  
Matsukawa gave him a rather tight smile. “What do you mean?”  
  
Oikawa pulled his knees to his chin and rested his arms on them. “I’m a setter, Mattsun,” he said, bright eyes peering at him shrewdly in a way that made Matsukawa feel like he was being x-rayed. “I’m not the best, but I do oka– _ow!_ It’s the truth, Iwa-chan!”  
  
“You do better than just _okay_ , dumbass! You got a recommendation into this place thanks to your volleyball skills, didn’t you?”  
  
“ _Anyway_. My job is to bring out the best in all my teammates. And when my teammates are functioning at their best, they have fun. And when they have fun, they don’t usually think about quitting so suddenly. You seemed to be enjoying practice last week, Mattsun. Are you sure it’s not your kind of thing anymore?”  
  
Oikawa’s eyes were so piercing that it was hard to look at him, and harder still to lie to him. Matsukawa dropped his gaze to the grass, wishing they’d both stop staring so intently.  
  
“It’s Hanamaki, isn’t it?” said Iwaizumi. Oikawa glanced at him, then back at Matsukawa, who still hadn’t looked up but they could tell he had stiffened a little.  
  
Matsukawa had realised ever since first speaking to them that Oikawa and Iwaizumi were perhaps two of the sharpest people he would ever met, and it was hard to hide things from them. He didn’t think that he was usually someone who was easily read—his high school friends sometimes complained that they couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and he grew used to that—but he felt that Oikawa and Iwaizumi picked him apart as easily as if he were some simple children’s toy. There was never any malice in what they did, though. They picked him apart gently, carefully, kindly, as though they had every intention of putting him back together afterwards and better than before, and it was a weird feeling. They were weird friends; good weird friends.  
  
“Well, it’s not that we can’t guess,” Iwaizumi continued when Matsukawa didn’t answer. “I take it, trying to be friendlier to him didn’t really work, huh?”  
  
“It got… complicated,” said Matsukawa slowly. “I really can’t explain it.”  
  
“Did you get the pen back to him, then?” asked Oikawa, and Matsukawa couldn’t hide a flinch.  
  
“Yeah, I did, but again, it’s complicated.” He ran a hand through his hair tiredly. “Look, I appreciate the concern, but–”  
  
“What’s that on your wrist, Mattsun?”  
  
 _Fuck_. Matsukawa had forgotten his watch in his dorm room that morning and didn’t realise until he was about to enter the lecture theatre. It had slipped his mind again. He quickly shoved his hand into his pocket, and to his dismay he could feel his face heating up.  
  
“Nothing,” he said. Oh, well, that wasn’t obvious _at all._  
  
“Mattsun,” Oikawa whined, but Iwaizumi elbowed him in the ribs.  
  
“Are you okay?” asked Iwaizumi quietly. “If there’s anything on your mind…”  
  
“I’m fine,” said Matsukawa with what he hoped was a calm look on his face. But the ordeal with Hanamaki was wearing him out, and every reminder of his tattoo was a chip in the armour he swore he would build for himself, and after nearly four years of keeping it a secret, Matsukawa felt the urge to stay silent dying inside of him. He really wouldn’t mind having friends to rant to right now, but telling them about it would mean that they, aside from Hanamaki, would be the only ones in the world to know, and Matsukawa wasn’t sure he was ready for that just yet. It seemed like a large gap to jump, and he was afraid to even take the first step—had constantly been afraid, he realised with an unpleasant churning in his stomach.  
  
But then Oikawa nudged Matsukawa’s shoulder lightly, and Matsukawa’s shoulders slumped and he sighed.  
  
“I’ll show you,” he said, “but it’s not what you think, so you’ll also give me a chance to explain, okay?”  
  
“Okay,” they chorused.  
  
“And please don’t ever tell anyone.”  
  
“Got it.”  
  
Holding his breath, he brought his hand back out again and showed them the tattoo. The looks on their faces were sort of entertaining: confusion, realisation, then a quick exchange of glances, before they stared at him with wide eyes.  
  
“‘ _Takahiro_ ’?” said Iwaizumi. “As in, _Hanamaki Takahiro?_ ”  
  
“This is what I meant when I said ‘it got complicated’,” said Matsukawa heavily. “I’ve had this since I was fifteen, _way_ before I ever met him. I woke up one day to find it there, and I have no idea how it happened. I only realised this was Hanamaki’s name recently, and things just went downhill from there.”  
  
“Is that in his handwriting?” Oikawa breathed.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Wait,” said Iwaizumi, frowning. “Hanamaki’s always wearing a watch too, and he always covers his wrist up with tape during volleyball practice and matches. Does he also have one with _your_ name?”  
  
Matsukawa looked away uncomfortably. Showing them his tattoo was one thing, but telling them about Hanamaki’s when he also hid his own and might not want them to know was another thing. While he didn’t get along with the guy, Matsukawa wasn’t about to sink so low that he purposely disrespected his privacy.  
  
“I don’t know,” he said, but the way Oikawa and Iwaizumi looked at him said that they knew he was lying. So much for that.  
  
“Soulmates,” whispered Oikawa excitedly. “Iwa-chan, why don’t _we_ have something like that?”  
  
“Why would I want your name on my skin?”  
  
“ _Rude._ My name would make an _awesome_ tattoo.”  
  
Matsukawa realised then that Iwaizumi’s entire given name, Hajime, would literally be a single line in kanji form, and perhaps not exactly the most exciting of handwritten tattoos. A bubble of laughter welled up inside of him, which felt slightly amazing. He needed something like that after yesterday’s angst.  
  
They looked at him curiously when they saw that he was trying not to laugh, and Matsukawa leaned against the tree and looked back at them a little exasperatedly, but fondly too.  
  
“You guys are so calm about this,” he said. “Don’t you find it weird? Or creepy? A tattoo appearing out of nowhere with the name of a someone I’d meet years later?”  
  
Oikawa shrugged. “It’s a little weird, yes, but that’s okay. We can’t expect to understand everything, Mattsun,” he said.  
  
“Look,” said Iwaizumi patiently, “this guy here believes in aliens and I give him grief about it, but–”  
  
“ _Aliens exist!_ Earth is a tiny rock floating in an endless space, and we humans barely understand _anything_ about non-Earth-related things, so who’s to say that in the whole wide universe, aliens don’t exist?”  
  
“You get it now?” said Iwaizumi, now deadpan. He had his thumb pointed at Oikawa and hadn’t taken his eyes off Matsukawa the entire time Oikawa was talking. “Don’t get him worked up because he can be really convincing–”  
  
“It’s not about being _convincing_ , Iwa-chan! It’s about the fact that there’s–”  
  
“–so much we don’t understand about the world and everything beyond it,” Iwaizumi finished, nodding. “And he’s got a point, you know.” He had the look of a man who had long resigned himself to his best friend’s beliefs, but it was clear that though it wasn’t something that he himself got worked up over, he nonetheless found it interesting and endearing.  
  
“That’s… That’s it?” said Matsukawa uncertainly. “That’s why you’re so calm?”  
  
“Sometimes, it’s enough,” said Oikawa, and his eyes were back to being shrewd. “Not everything has a satisfactory answer, and not everything has to be analytical, Mattsun.”  
  
It wasn’t exactly what Matsukawa had been looking for, and Oikawa was right; his answer for the tattoos was less than satisfying, but it was still oddly comforting in its own way. Or maybe that was just Oikawa and Iwaizumi being here. He twisted his fingers together absently and stared at the ground.  
      
“Mysterious tattoo thing aside,” said Iwaizumi, “how did you feel when you realised out it was Hanamaki?”  
  
Matsukawa thought for a moment. “I found out really suddenly, so it completely freaked me out,” he said slowly, quietly. “I don’t remember much else, though.” He wasn’t lying; after the more recent events, he really couldn’t remember being anything other than disappointed and heartbroken (which he still didn’t understand).  
  
“How do you feel now?”  
  
Well, he wasn’t going to admit it, was he?  
  
“Pretty over it, actually,” said Matsukawa tiredly. “I really just don’t give a shit anymore.”  
  
“Really? You really don’t care?” said Oikawa delicately. When Matsukawa looked up at him and raised his eyebrows, he continued, “I think the problem is that you’re kind of dishonest, Mattsun. You don’t want to be fighting with Makki, but you both get under each other’s skin, and you prefer to pretend it doesn’t bother you at all. But… pretending isn’t going to help you much.”  
  
Again, Matsukawa was carefully being taken apart. For a brief moment, he wondered if Hanamaki felt this way if or when Oikawa and Iwaizumi spoke to him.  
  
“What do you think I should I do, then?” Matsukawa asked quietly.  
  
They were silent for a while, and he expected this. While this whole ordeal probably should have been simple, it wasn’t, for the sole reason that he and Hanamaki were two halves of a very stupid, stubborn equation, not as easily solved as if it were a volleyball strategy they were trying to figure out. Oikawa and Iwaizumi were good, but not miracle workers.  
  
“I don’t know,” said Oikawa at last. “Honestly, this is between you and Makki, but if you like, we can try talking to him for you–”  
  
“Please don’t.”  
  
“Fair enough,” said Oikawa, and Iwaizumi nodded.  
  
“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate you worrying,” said Matsukawa, “but I’ll be fine. I don’t really know how to deal with things at the moment, but I’ll figure it out.”  
  
“We just want you to be okay,” said Iwaizumi. “You can rant to us about anything that’s bothering you, but just… be honest.”  
  
“And since you already tried talking but it didn’t work, we’re not saying you should talk to him anymore if you really don’t want to,” said Oikawa. “It’s important to know when to walk away from something—or someone—that makes you unhappy, so…” He winced before reaching into his bag and pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper which Matsukawa recognised as being another blank resignation form for the university’s clubs, just like the one they had torn up. Oikawa handed it to him whilst having the grace to look somewhat ashamed. “We won’t rip up your forms anymore. Sorry, you’ll need to fill it out again, we got a little carried away. It didn’t make much sense when we heard about it, so we thought we’d discuss it with you first and make sure that you were certain you wanted to leave.”  
  
Matsukawa took the form from him and stared at it for a while. “I do like volleyball,” he said slowly. “I like playing with you guys, and the rest of the team are good too… but I think if I spend too much time around Hanamaki, he and I are eventually going to snap and physically pick a fight with each other and we’ll mess up the team’s balance.”  
  
“Well, they do say ‘beware the quiet ones’,” Iwaizumi muttered.  
  
Matsukawa smiled slightly. “I’m still thinking about it,” he said. “Right now, I need some space to clear my head, but… I’ll let you know.”  
  
They looked as though they were still tempted to keep trying to persuade him, so he was grateful when they nodded instead. Matsukawa stared at the resignation form in his hands again and his gaze fell to his wrist, and he couldn’t help but ask quietly, “Do you think it’s possible that he and I could get along?”  
  
They exchanged glances before Oikawa shrugged and said, “Sure, given some time. Honestly, Makki’s probably just as freaked out about the tattoo as you are, but I think he’ll come to his senses eventually.”  
  
“He’s not a bad guy once he’s got his head screwed on right,” said Iwaizumi, “otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be friends with him. Oikawa’s right; given a bit of time, things will probably work themselves out. But for now, just do what you feel you need to.”  
  
“Sorry we couldn’t help, Mattsun,” said Oikawa, but Matsukawa shook his head.  
  
“No, you’ve given me things to think about, and believe it or not, I do feel a little better about it all, so… thank you,” he said. He meant it, too. Iwaizumi backhanded him lightly on the arm.  
  
“We’re friends, it’s what we do,” he said.  
  
 _Good weird friends._  
  
“We have our lecture to go to now, Mattsun,” said Oikawa, grabbing Iwaizumi’s arm to check the time on his watch and receiving a flick to the forehead. “We’ll see you around, okay? Call us if you want to talk.”  
  
“Thanks,” said Matsukawa softly and a little tiredly. The three of them stood up and stretched and dusted themselves off.  
  
“Come on, we’re already running late,” said Iwaizumi as he gathered his bag. “See you, Matsukawa. Don’t overthink things.”  
  
They parted ways, and Oikawa and Iwaizumi were already bickering about god knows what, and as Matsukawa watched them from over his shoulder, he thought, those two didn’t have each other’s names on their wrists because they really didn’t need them. He smiled slightly before turning away. He’d never met anyone quite like them.  
  
The smile faded from his face quickly as he dropped his gaze back to the blank resignation form in his hand.  
  
“Don’t overthink things,” he repeated under his breath. “Right.”  
  
—————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, the pacing ended up kind of weird in this chapter. There was so much I wanted to have them say, that I may have overdone it, but I was poring over it too much and had to post it before I got too stuck on this chapter... _(:3 」∠)_ Future chapters will hopefully be less messy!
> 
> –––  
> Iwaizumi's full name in kanji is 岩泉一  
> 岩泉 = Iwaizumi (family name)  
> 一 = Hajime (given name, what I mean by "single line"!)
> 
> And Oikawa's full name in kanji is 及川徹  
> 及川 = Oikawa (family name)  
> 徹 = Tooru (given name)


	8. Overthink

Matsukawa skipped Saturday’s practice to give himself some much-needed breathing space over the weekend. He slept in until almost midday, ate the leftover curry his roommate had cooked the night before, headed out into the city and bought a nice black jacket and a t-shirt that were on sale for half-price and a new case for his phone, then treated himself to his favourite meal of cheese-filled steak for dinner, before returning to his dorm and lounging around to watch videos on his laptop until he turned in for the night. On Sunday, he went for an early morning jog, watched a bad movie with his roommate and snarked their way through the entire thing, and did homework in the afternoon all the way until evening, when it was his turn to make dinner (fried rice). He managed to burn less than a third of the food this time, which was a huge improvement, and he ate with his roommate.  
  
It was a mellow weekend which was just the thing he needed, and he started his Monday morning feeling far less tired than he had in a while. Matsukawa headed to his favourite café near the university with his laptop and reading materials in a vain attempt to write up his essay that was due soon. He tucked himself into a quiet corner with an iced coffee, cracked open his laptop and textbook, and got to work.  
  
He had been there for less than half an hour when a familiar laugh near the counter made him look up automatically, before he quickly ducked behind his laptop again, cringing. It was Hanamaki. Of _course_ it was. The energy Matsukawa had built up thanks to his relaxing weekend seemed to rapidly drain out of him. He knew he’d run into him eventually, but had hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. He really just couldn’t catch a break.  
  
Hanamaki was standing with someone whom Matsukawa didn’t recognise, and was quite obviously flirting with him. On his face was his usual warm smile-smirk, but it was somewhat coyer, and he stood fairly close to him, closer than he probably would have if he had considered themselves just friends. He was looking at the guy as though he were the only other person in the room.  
  
Why the hell was Matsukawa watching them? He turned his attention back to his laptop, but it was hard to concentrate now. He thought about leaving, but remembered that he had told himself that he wouldn’t let Hanamaki get to him anymore, and that also meant ignoring him whenever he could. Matsukawa typed up a sentence, frowned at the spelling mistakes and misuse of kanji, deleted it, then stared at the blank space on his screen. From the corner of his eye, he saw Hanamaki and his friend (“friend”) collect their coffees and head over to sit at a table not far from him. Matsukawa sunk a little lower in his chair to try to hide, before asking himself why exactly he was hiding at all. He straightened up again. This was ridiculous, and anyway, Hanamaki was clearly distracted by his crush and probably hadn’t even noticed Matsukawa.  
  
Matsukawa typed up another half sentence, paused for several seconds, typed the rest of it, deleted a third, rewrote it, deleted the entire thing, then sat back in his chair whilst sipping his coffee, staring at his laptop like it had offended him. His brain had hit a block. He hadn’t even reached half an hour of working.  
  
He was trying very hard not to look over at Hanamaki’s table again (why was it so _tempting?_ ) because part of him was also terrified of accidentally meeting his eye if Hanamaki looked up at him too. Matsukawa wasn’t sure he had it in him to deal with that level of awkwardness. He briefly wondered how Hanamaki would also react, but he seemed too engrossed in whatever his sugar-pie was talking about.  
  
_Makki’s probably just as freaked out about the tattoo as you are, but I think he’ll come to his senses eventually._  
  
Nope, Hanamaki was fine. Or, if he was freaked out, then he hid it well. Better than Matsukawa did, anyway.  
  
Where did he get all that carefreeness? Here was Matsukawa, distracted as hell and getting no work done and, despite commanding himself otherwise, was super bothered by the fact that Hanamaki was even in the vicinity. And there was Hanamaki, chatting and joking around with his flirt-buddy like nothing was wrong. How did he do it? Was it the presence of his object of affection calming him down? It must be nice to do things so simply. Or was it purely because he hadn’t noticed Matsukawa yet, and would he also be distracted and bothered if he had?  
  
Urgh, it should be illegal for one person to have this sort of impact on anyone. Matsukawa had never been so bothered by the idea of not getting along with someone before. He wondered (and was only ninety-eight percent joking to himself) if he could somehow twist this into an excuse to ask for an extension on the essay.  
  
Matsukawa jammed the knuckles of his thumbs against his eyes. All of his senses felt a little warped: the ambient noise from the café had dulled into a soft buzz, and Hanamaki’s every laugh seemed to be accentuated.  
  
He had such a nice laugh.  
  
Matsukawa felt his chest tighten a little, and his wrist with his tattoo gave a slight stinging feeling under his watch. He pressed his other hand against it, grimacing as he now stared unseeingly at his screen.  
  
Were Iwaizumi and Oikawa right, and could Matsukawa and Hanamaki ever be friends? Would they constantly be on guard around each other (or would Matsukawa be one-sidedly on guard around Hanamaki)? Could they ever have a relaxed conversation over coffee and whatever else, joking about something that made them both laugh? Matsukawa vaguely noted that this café sold cream puffs, which was a food that Hanamaki loved—Oikawa and Iwaizumi gently teased him about it sometimes ever since he discovered the university’s cafeteria sold them a few days a week, and he had been working on needling the cafeteria staff into making them on a daily basis, so far to no success. That was the sort of thing friends laughed and joked over, right? Could they ever do that?  
  
Could Matsukawa ever stop thinking about Hanamaki, despite telling himself over and over again that he wouldn’t? Could he ever finish this piece of crap essay?  
  
Since Hanamaki and his obvious crush entered the café twenty minutes ago, Matsukawa had typed up a grand total of three sentences. _Don’t overthink things_ , Iwaizumi’s voice echoed in his head. And yet, Matsukawa was doing the exact opposite. This was not working. He gave up. He closed his laptop and crammed it and his textbook into his bag, collected his half-finished coffee, and strode out of the café, passing Hanamaki’s table without looking at him.  
  
_I didn’t ask for your name on my wrist._  
  
No, they would probably never be friends, he thought.  
  
—————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Mattsun... ( TヮT);;;


	9. Fault

Hanamaki didn’t show up to their usual Monday afternoon study session in the library with Oikawa and Iwaizumi. Though none of them said anything, Matsukawa could practically _hear_ them having a silent conversation with each other as he made another attempt to write his essay and tried to ignore them. It was quieter than usual, and not in a good way; Oikawa and Iwaizumi were a bit livelier when Hanamaki was around and things weren’t so tense, and Matsukawa couldn’t help but feel guilty because he was also partially to blame.  
  
Hanamaki also didn’t show up to Tuesday lunch at the ramen store down the road after Oikawa had invited him along, citing already-made plans.  
  
“It’s not your fault, Matsukawa,” said Iwaizumi bracingly when he noticed he was saying even less than usual. “He said he was having lunch with someone else from another course, that’s all.”   
  
_Maybe the same guy he had been flirting with at the café,_ thought Matsukawa.   
  
“It doesn’t bother me,” he said calmly, and they knew he was pretending again, “but I think the staff forgot our side of gyoza.” He flagged down the waiter and politely asked him to look into it, ignoring the exchange of glances between Oikawa and Iwaizumi.  
  
When their gyoza was brought out, they dived for them, and in between bites, Oikawa asked, “Have you thought about the volleyball club?”  
  
There was practice later that afternoon. Matsukawa hadn’t forgotten.  
  
“Yeah, I have,” he said, not looking at him. “I’m not quitting.”  
  
“ _Yesss!_ ” They slapped each other a high-five.  
  
“Yet,” he added, and they quickly calmed down. “I’m still considering it but…” He shrugged.  
  
“Don’t worry, once you get back onto the receiving end of my tosses, you’ll rediscover how great volleyball is!” said Oikawa happily. Matsukawa smiled a little.  
  
“I’m counting on you then,” he said. He wondered how much longer he would need them to keep lending him a hand.  
  
That afternoon, he entered the gymnasium, ready for practice. It felt a little strange to be back, even though he hadn’t been away for very long. Some of the members already there were warming up, some were practising tosses or spikes, Iwaizumi was practising receives with one of the other wing-spikers, and Oikawa was discussing something with their vice-captain. Hanamaki was there too, practising jump serves with one of their liberos. This was a new development, so presumably it was something he had picked up during the Saturday session that Matsukawa had missed. While some of his serves connected and certainly had power, they had next to no accuracy, and the poor libero had to dash all over the court just to receive them; most of his other attempts at jump serves either smacked the net clumsily, or missed his hand completely.  
   
Matsukawa tore his eyes away from them and approached the captain and coach, who were discussing something quietly, and he bowed to them and apologised for skipping practice on Saturday. After assuring them that everything was fine, he joined some of the others in warming up. Oikawa and Iwaizumi ruffled his hair delightedly when they saw him, and practice began soon after.  
  
It was nothing unusual, nothing to set it apart from previous training sessions with the team. The energy was good and everyone was sharp as usual. Matsukawa managed several nice blocks, and his own regular serve was improving in power and accuracy, too. The vice-captain clapped his shoulder when it was time for a drink break and told him that it was good to see him back at practice. Matsukawa wasn’t sure he deserved that praise.  
  
Hanamaki had taken a quick drink, then dragged the libero he was practising with earlier back onto the court, and resumed hitting his powerful but chaotic jump serves. He wasn’t getting much better at them—some serves didn’t even make it over the net—but practice made perfect and Matsukawa supposed there was something to be said about his persistence.   
  
Urgh, he was watching him. _Again_.   
  
Matsukawa knew that, objectively, he could enjoy watching Hanamaki play or practice volleyball, because Hanamaki read the game and received and spiked with a balance of grace and power and confidence that was hard to look away from. He was good—not the best, but good to watch, which was, obviously, frustrating and annoying. Thankfully, one of the other middle blockers turned to Matsukawa and they began discussing blocking techniques to use during a match, which was a welcome distraction for a little while.   
  
Until–  
  
“ _LOOK OUT!_ ”  
  
Matsukawa had raised his bottle to his lips and was drinking his water when he felt a volleyball hit the side of his head with a lot of force, and then a sharp pain in his mouth from where it had hit the bottle’s spout.  
  
Someone shouted his name. Someone else—Hanamaki?—was swearing loudly. There were a lot of sensations happening all at once; his head where he had been hit was smarting, there was a dull ache against his teeth, and he could taste blood from a cut on his lip. What the hell, since when were water bottles so dangerous?  
  
He pressed his hand to his mouth, frowning and feeling a little confused. Oikawa and Iwaizumi converged on him, along with the captain and the middle blocker Matsukawa had been talking to, but the one to stand out the most in the middle of them (of _course_ he would) was Hanamaki.  
  
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Hanamaki gasped, looking pale and horrified, “I seriously didn’t mean that, I’m sorry–”   
  
His very presence should not have been so suffocating, but it was. Matsukawa turned away from him and mumbled, “It’s fine.” But he felt his hand on his arm, and Matsukawa automatically flinched away, like he’d been given an electric shock. He saw Hanamaki fall back in surprise.  
  
“I really didn’t mean to–” Hanamaki looked as though he were afraid to touch him now, and Matsukawa swore silently to himself. He did it again, he fucked up, he hadn’t meant to pull away like that, what the hell?  
  
Iwaizumi grabbed Hanamaki’s arm and yanked him to the side, murmuring something in a low voice. Hanamaki seemed to be protesting, but they spoke too quietly for Matsukawa to understand them.  
  
“I’ll take him to get cleaned up, captain,” said Oikawa in a cheerful voice that was forced, to which the captain agreed, and Matsukawa felt himself being dragged out by the elbow.  
  
Once in the washroom, Matsukawa bent over one of the sinks and rinsed out his mouth, watching as the mix of blood and water swirled down the drain. His lip felt a little raw, but it didn’t hurt nor bleed too badly. He had had worse. And honestly, he felt much worse than his lip did.  
  
In his second year of high school, one of his friends on the volleyball team had accidentally beaned Matsukawa right in the face with a stray spike. There had been a flurry of apologies, a play-fight when Matsukawa grabbed his friend in a headlock, a lot of yelling and laughing, and then an apology-snack from the cafeteria the next day, and the whole ordeal was put behind them.  
  
That was the kind of thing Matsukawa felt should happen whenever there were minor accidents in sports (apology-snack optional). Hanamaki accidentally hitting him should have been like that, should have been something they could laugh off eventually, but it wasn’t. It all felt wrong.  
  
Matsukawa cared. He didn’t want to ever admit it, and he didn’t even know why he felt this way, but he cared about what Hanamaki thought and what he did. He cared about _Hanamaki_ , but not in that way, not platonically and definitely not romantically, and it made no sense and it was increasingly frustrating and confusing. He didn’t mind the occasional volleyball accident—as far as he was concerned, it was just something that naturally came with the sport—but he cared that neither of them could handle it like normal people should. Every time he thought they’d hit a plateau, a point of neither improvement nor deterioration in this… this… _association_ of theirs for want of a better word, he’d be proven wrong and things would spiral out of control again, and he wanted it all to _stop_.  
  
Behind him, Oikawa was fidgeting with the hem of his shirt dejectedly.  
  
“Now that I think about it,” he murmured, “if we had let you resign from the club like you wanted to in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened.”  
  
Matsukawa stared at him in the mirror for a handful of seconds, startled. Then, his expression crumpled and he began to laugh.  
  
It was another weird feeling. He didn’t know why he was laughing because it wasn’t like this was particularly funny, but it felt somewhat right. A lot of what he had bottled up since starting university was escaping him, and perhaps the nicest thing was that he knew Oikawa wasn’t the type to judge him for it. His friend just watched him silently with an unreadable expression on his face as Matsukawa doubled over, leaning against the sink for support.  
  
(He wished Oikawa would make some sort of silly remark like he usually did. It made him feel more at ease when he was joking around, like everything was going to be okay.)  
  
Matsukawa’s laughter finally died down after a while. He bent over the sink again and splashed his face with water and used his shirt to dry it off, before turning to look back at Oikawa with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.  
  
“I don’t care,” he said, and it was a lie, a reminder to himself more than anything. “This shit happens all the time. It’s not your fault.”  
  
“Mattsun–”  
  
“Come on, the captain will be getting antsy by now.”  
  
“Are you–”  
  
“I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.” Matsukawa was still smiling, and Oikawa looked disheartened, a little helpless, and Matsukawa hated that this situation was becoming even more of a mess. He brushed past him and walked out of the washroom, and Oikawa followed him quietly.   
  
When they reached the courts again, their captain and vice-captain descended on him, asking him how he felt. He bowed and apologised again for disrupting practice and reassured them that he was completely fine, and received friendly slaps on the back for his trouble, before he rejoined the training session and practised spikes with one of the other setters. He could feel Oikawa, Iwaizumi, and Hanamaki’s gazes boring into the back of his head, which was a little distracting, but he had had enough experiences with distractions in the last couple of weeks to know how to ignore them now.   
  
Practice ended nearly an hour later. Hanamaki and Matsukawa still hadn’t said a word to each other nor looked at each other, Hanamaki hadn’t practised his jump-serves since, and Oikawa and Iwaizumi looked torn between being concerned and being completely done with their idiot friends. They murmured quietly between themselves as they headed off to get dinner after thanking the rest of the team for the practice, Hanamaki made his way to the dorms to the north of the university, and Matsukawa headed to the dorms to the east.   
  
_Things are fine,_ Matsukawa told himself, hoping the others would feel the same way (and knowing they wouldn’t). Practice had been good aside from the accident, and the exercise was welcome. The only thing that hurt was his lip, slightly, and that would go away by the end of the day. It was fine. Nothing else hurt. Nothing else would hurt anymore. He kept repeating this to himself.  
  
But he still couldn’t shake the memory of Hanamaki looking afraid to touch him.  
  
(No, he didn’t care. He didn’t care.)  
  
—————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *gets beaned with several volleyballs*


	10. Change

It was the Wednesday after the incident at volleyball practice, and Matsukawa had just finished his midday lecture, and Hanamaki was waiting for him outside the lecture theatre.  
  
Wait, what?  
  
_Fuck_ , thought Matsukawa when he saw him. There it was again: that stinging feeling in his wrist, and his heart-rate quickening for all the wrong reasons.  
  
Hanamaki was leaning against the opposite wall with his hands in pockets and a bored expression on his face. When he spotted Matsukawa coming out the door, he raised his head and his expression hardened a little, and Matsukawa had half a mind to run away (and he had picked up some pretty good tips on how to do so from when Hanamaki was avoiding him, too). He could just mingle with the other students and go with the flow of the moving crowd and Hanamaki would probably lose him.  
  
Or, he would, if not for the fact that Hanamaki managed to quickly push past some students and stand right in Matsukawa’s path and block his way. He kept his hands firmly in his pockets and his arms tucked stiffly by his sides as he looked Matsukawa straight in the eyes. Students continued to stream around them, some impatiently, and others giving them curious glances.  
  
“Can we talk?” said Hanamaki, in a way that told Matsukawa he wasn’t actually giving him much of a choice.  
  
_Can we not?_ thought Matsukawa. “I have class.”  
  
“When?” There was determination on Hanamaki’s face, and Matsukawa found himself avoiding his eyes for what was probably the thousandth time. His jaw clenched.  
  
“What did you want to talk about?” he asked curtly. He wanted whatever it was to be over and done with as soon as possible; his next class was in another half an hour, but he only had the composure for much less.  
  
“Not here. Outside.” Hanamaki motioned for him to follow, and with more curiosity than Matsukawa would have liked, he did so and they stepped out into the courtyard.  
  
_I don’t care,_ Matsukawa repeated to himself like a mantra as Hanamaki turned around to face him again. _The tattoos mean nothing. I don’t care. Nothing will hurt anymore. I don’t care._  
  
“I… want to apologise,” said Hanamaki. He steadfastly kept his gazed locked onto Matsukawa’s rather than look away, which was impressive given that Matsukawa was now staring at him like he’d just burst into a musical number. “I realised I’ve been a real ass ever since meeting you, even though you hadn’t done anything wrong, so… I’m sorry.”  
  
What?  
  
Matsukawa’s brain was hitting a block again. Was this really happening? Was he actually still in his lecture and had fallen asleep?  
  
“Did Oikawa and Iwaizumi put you up to this?” he asked before he could stop himself. Hanamaki looked genuinely confused.  
  
“No?” he said.  
  
“Never mind.”  
  
“I mean, I wouldn’t put it past them either, but they haven’t mentioned anything.”  
  
“If this is about what happened at practice yesterday–”  
  
“No,” said Hanamaki quickly. “I mean, yes and no. I swear, hitting you with the ball was an accident, I still can’t control my jump-serves–”  
  
“It’s fine,” said Matsukawa. It really was. “That kind of crap happens with volleyball.”  
  
“Yeah, well… I couldn’t apologise to you properly after hitting you with the ball. I’ve never had anyone _flinch_ from me like you did, and I guess that was when I realised I fucked up really badly. I mean, I knew I’d fucked up already, but… not to that extent.” He looked embarrassed, ashamed, and Matsukawa could empathise very strongly. Hanamaki tapped the side of his mouth and winced a little. “Does that still…”  
  
“Nah, it doesn’t hurt,” said Matsukawa, automatically pressing his hand against his lip which was still a tad red and swollen.  
  
“Okay,” said Hanamaki, nodding. “Good.” He finally looked away, dropping his gaze to the floor and scuffing his foot on the ground as the two of them stood there like awkward junior high students.  
  
It was completely bizarre, but Matsukawa also found that his feelings of frustration and anger that were so constant around Hanamaki, were now… absent. He remembered what Oikawa had told him: that he didn’t actually want to be fighting with Hanamaki. It hadn’t made much sense to him at the time, but now Matsukawa realise that Oikawa had probably been right; maybe he was so easily mollified by Hanamaki’s apology because he just wanted the tired petty fighting to stop.  
  
Was that okay?  
  
A small voice reminded him of Hanamaki’s words that had actually hurt, and he also remembered Oikawa telling him that it was important to know when to walk away from something or someone that made him unhappy. He remembered the times he had told himself that he and Hanamaki would probably never be friends. _I didn’t ask for your name on my wrist._  
  
Would this be okay?  
  
Would he regret giving everything a second chance—giving Hanamaki a second chance, giving _himself_ a second chance to make things right, to stop fucking up? Hanamaki’s apology yesterday at volleyball practice had seemed so genuine, as was his apology just now. _Makki’s probably just as freaked out about the tattoo as you are, but I think he’ll come to his senses eventually._ Maybe Oikawa was right, maybe that’s all it was. And Hanamaki apologised first… so he didn’t think Matsukawa was a complete lost cause, either. Maybe this was Hanamaki giving them a second chance, too. Maybe this could work; they could clear up misunderstandings and try to see where the other was coming from.  
  
This could be okay.  
  
Second chance didn’t mean that all exits were now blocked; if it still didn’t work out, then Matsukawa would walk away for good.  
  
“I’m sorry too,” he said at last as he stared at the ground (it was still hard to look at him; Hanamaki was braver than he was, it seemed). “I was hostile to you first, so I–”  
  
“First? How?”  
  
Dammit, he had to repeat the details of that event? This was so embarrassing.  
  
“Um… the first time we properly spoke. Outside the locker r–”  
  
“Oh, right. Yeah, I sort of remember,” said Hanamaki ( _god_ , he moved at a pace that Matsukawa could barely keep up with). “Well, at the time, I thought you were trying to pick a fight so I just… snapped back. I told you then that you pissed me off and I didn’t know why, but you don’t _actually_ piss me off. I just said that in the heat of the moment. Ahh, shit.” He ran a hand over his face. “That sounds so messed up. I can’t explain it.”  
  
Matsukawa knew that feeling well. He also realised then, that Hanamaki unsettling him wasn’t one-sided; he had unsettled Hanamaki, too. He thought about all the times Hanamaki made him frustrated or distracted or confused, and he wondered if that applied vice versa as well. It was surreal.  
  
“I don’t piss you off?” he said uncertainly.  
  
“No, not really. Like I said, you didn’t really do anything.”  
  
“But… when I showed you my tattoo when we were at the gardens…”  
  
Hanamaki winced again and shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah, that… well, I guess I lost my cool? I’ve had the tattoo for years, and then I suddenly find out it’s yours, and that _you_ have one with _my_ name. It kind of explained why I was on edge around you all the time, but didn’t know why… like, a subconscious thing. Didn’t you freak out too, when you realised?”  
  
“I did,” Matsukawa admitted. “It wasn’t pretty.”  
  
“And, to be fair,” said Hanamaki tentatively, “when you went up to me in the gardens, you were a little scary.”  
  
It was Matsukawa’s turn to wince. “That’s true,” he said. “Sorry.”  
  
“And why’d you throw a pen at me?”  
  
“That was yours. You gave it to me to write my name at the café.”  
  
Realisation dawned on Hanamaki’s face. “ _Ohh_ ,” he breathed. “I threw it away.” Matsukawa felt a sudden urge to laugh, and fought it down.  
  
“It’s… weird,” he said slowly. “I just assumed the whole thing didn’t bother you that much.”  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
“Yeah. You said you didn’t believe in fate and…” _Soulmates._ “… stuff like that. You just seemed like you didn’t care in general, and you were just chill about everything.”  
  
“I have no idea how you thought that, considering I was literally running away from you at one point, but okay, I’ll take it.”  
  
A little laugh escaped Matsukawa’s throat this time, which startled him, and apparently startled Hanamaki too, by the way he blinked in surprise and then quickly dropped his gaze back to the ground again.  
  
“I, uh, saw you studying in the café the other day,” said Hanamaki.  
  
Oops.  
  
“You did?”  
  
“Yeah… I wasn’t sure if you saw me though. You seemed busy.”  
  
Oh, hell, he didn’t even know _half_ of it.  
  
“Yeah, I was trying to write that essay for Yoshida-sensei.”  
  
“Ah, shit, I’m still only a third done with mine.” Hanamaki closed his eyes briefly as though in pain. “Speaking of…”  
  
“Yeah,” said Matsukawa hastily. “I’ve got a tutorial on soon anyway.”  
  
“Oh, yeah.” Hanamaki nodded. “Okay.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
The awkwardness of this situation would’ve been funny, if it weren’t so painfully embarrassing, if they didn’t feel like such immature children. Still, this was a huge improvement to being pissed at each other and avoiding each other like they were diseased. It was a start… a very good start.  
  
“Uh… see you tomorrow,” said Matsukawa. He never thought he’d say that to him.  
  
Hanamaki nodded and smiled faintly—the first time he had ever sent a smile Matsukawa’s way—and echoed, “See you tomorrow.”  
  
—————


	11. Carefree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, an update after a billion years. Thank you for your patience, everyone!! And thank you for reading, thank you for your kudos, and thank you for your comments. <3

That was by far the longest conversation they had ever had with each other, and Matsukawa wasn’t entirely convinced that he hadn’t just imagined the whole thing.  
  
It had been several hours since they spoke, and he was beginning to think that he shouldn’t be allowed to be by himself when something potentially life-changing had just taken place. Getting through his day’s classes was difficult, given that he kept spacing out whilst every tiny detail about their conversation kept playing through his mind.  
  
It was one of those days when he should have taken Iwaizumi’s advice: _don’t overthink things_ , because ever since the talk, his thoughts had gone from ‘holy crap, we apologised and spoke without wanting to kick each other’ to ‘did I apologise enough because now that I think about it, he was doing a lot of the apologising’ to ‘fuck, what if he thinks I’m arrogant for not apologising enough’ to ‘oh shit, I’m such an asshole’. He kept over-analysing everything Hanamaki had said, and overthinking every other way his own words could have been interpreted, and then stressing about whether he had said the right things. This carried on throughout the evening, and his night had been a restless one.  
  
He also kept thinking about that smile Hanamaki had given him, slight as it was. It burned into Matsukawa’s mind, and he found himself hoping very hard that it had all been real; they had been through a lot, both of them, and Matsukawa felt that that smile was something like a trophy after a hard-won battle. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to put up with this whole ordeal again if it had just been a dream; the disappointment would probably be a little more than he could handle, after letting his guard down so suddenly.  
  
Luckily, when he joined his friends’ usual table at the library to study the next morning, Hanamaki looked up, smiled slightly again and nodded at him, and Matsukawa knew it hadn’t just been his imagination. That was a huge relief. The stunned looks on Oikawa’s and Iwaizumi’s faces helped confirm it, too; the pair spent a lot of their study time throwing suspicious looks between Matsukawa and Hanamaki, which they did their best to ignore as they diligently finished off the essay they had been anguishing over.  
  
There was a more relaxed atmosphere, now that Hanamaki and Matsukawa had cleared the air a little. Matsukawa felt more at ease than he had since starting university, and it was quite astounding. He hadn’t really understood the extent of how bad things had been, until he woke up in the morning _without_ that awful nagging feeling of slight dread at the thought of seeing Hanamaki later that day. It was freeing and just _nice_.  
  
However, there was still a tension that they could all feel.  
  
Matsukawa supposed that it was because they had only just gotten over their clashing, that the tension still lingered, but he soon realised this wasn’t entirely the case.  
  
When Matsukawa realised after one of his space-out sessions that he hadn’t taken down some notes in their lecture, Hanamaki practically flung his notebook at him in an attempt to pass it over as he said, “No worries, have a look at my notes”; when they went to buy snacks at the nearby convenience store and Matsukawa found that he was a little short on change, Hanamaki slapped down the whole amount—not even the difference, but the whole amount—onto counter and told him, “Nah, don’t worry, I’ve got it”, and refused to take it back when Matsukawa insisted; when Matsukawa misplaced his water bottle at volleyball practice, Hanamaki was at his elbow with a spare; when Matsukawa mentioned needing to submit some paperwork to the university administration, Hanamaki offered to take it to them instead. Matsukawa had turned him down, but only after a lot of Hanamaki’s vehement insistence that he didn’t mind going at all.  
  
It felt wrong, thought Matsukawa as he made his way slowly across the university grounds, deep in thought. They had stopped fighting and pointedly ignoring each other, but now, in its place was a politeness and attempt at civility that felt too forced.  
  
Hanamaki was too eager to please, too eager to make up for past hostility, and Matsukawa both hated that, and felt guilty about it. He hadn’t understood what was happening until a few days into this new ordeal, and he realised that _he_ hadn’t gone out of his way to make things up to Hanamaki. He hadn’t offered to pay for his food or run simple errands for him, because it hadn’t occurred to him to do so. He, Oikawa, and Iwaizumi all helped each other out whenever they could, but they did so naturally and easily, like friends were meant to be. But there was nothing natural about this.  
  
Friends treated each other as equals, but the way things were now, Hanamaki treated Matsukawa as though he were a superior, as someone he was afraid of upsetting, and it wasn’t right. Something had to be done… and by the looks of things, it was up to Matsukawa to stop hiding and to take the next step, unlike all the other times he hadn’t, and regretted it. He couldn’t be scared anymore.  
  
Like right now. Matsukawa spotted Hanamaki walking ahead on the way to one of their volleyball practices. His hands were in his pockets and he strolled along in a carefree manner, unlike how he often walked whenever he was around Matsukawa nowadays. This thought brought a twisting feeling in his chest. He had to fix things.  
  
“Okay,” he mumbled to himself, and then took a deep breath. He jogged over to Hanamaki and grabbed his sleeve and pulled him aside. Startled, Hanamaki stared at him with some apprehension, and Matsukawa couldn’t really blame him. They had made a lot of progress, but still had some way to go.  
  
“Could you please relax?” Matsukawa murmured, a little hesitantly. When Hanamaki gave him a confused look, he added, “I mean you seem forced. Like you’re trying _too_ hard to be friendly, and that’s weird. Just… Just be yourself, like if you were hanging out with Oikawa or Iwaizumi.”  
  
“Haven’t I been doing that?”  
  
“Honestly? No. Not around me, anyway. You… You’re trying too hard, and I appreciate it, but you don’t need to be overly nice to me. Just… relax.”  
  
Hanamaki still looked confused. Matsukawa scratched his neck awkwardly.  
  
“I’ve got your back,” he said, hoping that wasn’t too forward, “and we’ve… we’ve patched things up, and that’s good, and I get that we might still have some things to work out, but I think that’s okay. We can fix one thing at a time. So… you don’t need to pay for my meals or… whatever. You don’t need to go out of your way too much. And contrary to whatever shitty first impression I gave you, I don’t actually get angry easily, so you don’t need to be scared of what I think or how I’ll react. Friends…” Oh, _man_ , that was going to take some time getting used to. “Friends don’t do that, you know?”  
  
Maybe he had said too much, been too forward. Maybe he was overthinking things again. Maybe he just came off as creepy. Oh, god, _please_ let him understand, _please_ –  
  
“Okay. I get it,” said Hanamaki, nodding thoughtfully. Matsukawa’s stomach gave a swooping sensation in relief. There was a pause, and then Hanamaki gave Matsukawa a light but firm punch to the arm, which surprised him more than physically hurt him.  
  
“Oi! What–”  
  
Matsukawa caught the small smile on Hanamaki’s face, right before he turned and continued walking, and he knew then that something had changed. And it was a good kind of change—from the frightened look on Hanamaki’s face after Matsukawa flinched away from him only a week ago, to the smile he gave just then… a weight had been lifted from Matsukawa’s shoulders, and somehow, he knew this applied to Hanamaki too.  
  
Matsukawa caught up and fall into step with him, and he reached out and lightly mussed up his hair. Hanamaki ducked and swatted him away, and they were grinning now, almost laughing, and it wasn’t forced. This was good. They would be fine now; things would actually be fine.  
  
Iwaizumi and Oikawa stared at them with stunned faces as they walked into the gymnasium, smiling.  
  
“There really can be miracles, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said in a stage-whisper.  
  
“Pass me a tissue, I’m going to cry,” Iwaizumi whispered back, slapping a hand over his heart dramatically. Matsukawa and Hanamaki simultaneously threw volleyballs in their direction.

—————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little stuck on where to take the next chapter, so it might be a while for this to update again, and I apologise for that. I'll try not to take too long! *sweeps my other WIPs under the couch hastily*
> 
> By the way, I'm on [tumblr](http://naff-nuff-nice.tumblr.com/) (side-blog, sorry!) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/naffnuffnice) now! Come cry over Haikyuu with me.


	12. Next

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~holy crap it's been six months~~ HELLO yes I have definitely not abandoned this, just been busy with Other Stuff™. Thank you for your patience, everyone!
> 
> This is a shorter and more mellow chapter before we get into The Next Arc™, and it's also a more heavily Oikawa-and-Iwaizumi-centric chapter; we'll get back to the other two dorks soon! Hope you enjoy! \o/

It had been a little over a week since Matsukawa and Hanamaki Officially Became Friends™ (according to Oikawa).  
  
This meant a lot of things: a little less tension between the first-years in the volleyball club; Hanamaki being coaxed into resuming practice of his jump-serves, with Matsukawa offering to practise receiving them and accepting an apology-snack if Hanamaki hit him in the face again; a _lot_ less tension during the times they, Oikawa, and Iwaizumi were hanging out; much more laughter and bantering and joking around, often at the other two’s expense; less productive study periods, but not in a bad way…  
  
“I really feel like we’re the proud parents of two kids who managed to figure out their differences,” said Oikawa at volleyball practice, chest puffed out and hands on his hips. “Don’t you think so, Iwa-ch– _hey!_ ”  
  
Without looking at him, Iwaizumi had tossed a volleyball over his shoulder with a flick of his wrist, and it bounced off Oikawa’s forehead.  
  
“I am not a parent to anyone, least of all those two.”  
  
“Why not?!”  
  
“They’ve teamed up. Hanamaki’s sarcasm has doubled, and Matsukawa’s hidden snark is coming out at an alarming rate. I thought he was the nice, quiet one. It’s all horrifying.”  
  
“But maybe that’s just their natural charm.”  
  
Iwaizumi shuddered.  
  
“HEADS UP!”  
  
They looked up just in time to see one of Hanamaki’s serves come flying at them. Iwaizumi threw his arms up in front of him, and it slammed against them and bounced onto the floor.  
  
“Shitty receive, Iwaizumi!” Hanamaki called out, and both he and Matsukawa were grinning. “How will you ever make the starting line-up like that?”  
  
“ _Go fuck yourself, Hanamaki!_ ”  
  
Matsukawa cracked up. None of them had ever seen him laugh as often as he did these days though, so Iwaizumi could hardly complain as they turned their focus back to Hanamaki’s jump-serves.  
  
“What do you think happens now?” Iwaizumi asked Oikawa, after elbowing him in the ribs for failing to stifle his own laughter. “With those two, I mean? And the whole… soulmates thing.”  
  
Oikawa made a thoughtful humming noise. “I wish I knew. I just have a feeling it’s going to be… quite an _interesting_ next couple of weeks.”  
  
“Good interesting or bad interesting?”  
  
Oikawa shrugged. “Emotional, definitely. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, though. All we can do is go with the flow.”  
  
“I don’t know why, but I’m kind of surprised that you’re taking this so calmly,” said Iwaizumi.  
  
“Iwa-chan, please,” said Oikawa with a shake of his head. “We spent _weeks_ dealing with those two being on edge around each other—I am definitely enjoying this. It’s so nice and relaxing!”  
  
Iwaizumi sighed. “I guess,” he said.  
  
“Be honest,” said Oikawa, nudging him with his shoulder. “Would you prefer them now, or how they were weeks ago?”  
  
Iwaizumi looked over at their friends who were bantering from across the net but grinning at each other and looking more at ease than he had ever seen them. He smiled a little and shook his head.  
  
“That’s not much of an option,” he said.  
  
“ _Iwa-chaaan…_ ”  
  
“Come on, let’s go practice your tosses.”  
  
“I need you to admit it! This is good for them!”  
  
“ _Move_.”  
  
“ _Iwa-chan!”_  
  
—————


	13. Courage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter ahead. This one was really frustratingly difficult to write... _(:3 」∠)＿

Matsukawa woke up the following Sunday morning to one hundred and sixteen unread messages in his, Oikawa’s, Iwaizumi’s, and Hanamaki’s Line group chat. Hanamaki and Oikawa were having a very in-depth debate over the pros and cons of cream puffs versus milk bread, and the best places they could go to eat them, should they ever turn it into a competition of which was better. The chat was peppered with attempts to get Iwaizumi to take a side (which he kept refusing to do), various silly but appropriately-used stickers, and demands for Matsukawa to wake up and join the discussion.  
  
With a sleepy smile, Matsukawa tapped his message into the chat: “ _Good morning. I’m actually not much of a sweet tooth, so I don’t have an opinion on either. They both taste similar to me._ ” This was followed by replies of “ _morning, sorry for the spam_ ” from Iwaizumi, and “ _I’ll pretend you didn’t say that, Mattsun_ (  ` 3 ´)” from Oikawa, and “ _YOU HEATHEN!!!!! I TRUSTED YOU!!!!!_ ” from Hanamaki, along with a whole range of various kicking and punching stickers. Matsukawa snickered into his pillow as he watched Hanamaki and Oikawa resume their debate.  
  
Becoming friends with someone Matsukawa had originally wanted to sock in the jaw at least twice a day, was a hell of a ride.  
  
Once he and Hanamaki got over the initial mental whiplash and could focus more on the nice friendship-ish stuff, they discovered that, outside of volleyball, they didn’t have a lot in common in terms of interests such as movies and music and the like, but they had a similar sense of humour: sarcastic, slightly immature (according to Iwaizumi, that killjoy), and with banter as sharp as a whip, and they took far too much pleasure in teasing Iwaizumi and Oikawa at every chance that came by. Hanamaki, having completely gotten over his initial tiptoeing around Matsukawa, also had no qualms about including him in his usual nudging and poking and teasing, which Matsukawa welcomed and joined in gladly.  
  
(Every now and then, a small part of Matsukawa would think about all the time they wasted getting at each other’s throats. He reminds himself not to dwell on it for too long.)  
  
But as much as they were slowly learning to open up around each other, they had been avoiding discussion of what Matsukawa privately felt was the most important topic that they shared: their name tattoos.  
  
He wanted to talk about it. _Itched to_. Rubbed his thumb over and over his tattoo whenever he was alone and his watch was off, as though doing so would help him work up the courage, like it sometimes used to in the past. They couldn’t keep going on like this as though it was just something simple that they could sweep under the rug.  
  
He wanted to know what Hanamaki felt the first time _Issei_ appeared on his skin. He wanted to know what Hanamaki thought of it, aside from the whole… possibly-soulmates thing. Did he draw comfort from his name like Matsukawa occasionally used to? (The thought of being able to give a then-stranger some strength like this from afar made Matsukawa feel a little warm inside—that hadn’t changed, even now.) Did anyone else know about it? Did he have an image of what _Issei_ was like before they met?  
  
Was he disappointed?  
  
Their Line chat conversation was still going—Hanamaki and Oikawa were now talking about their favourite types of donuts from Mister Donut, with Iwaizumi beating down their attempts to needle him into treating them to a dozen. Matsukawa watched as the messages flickered in and out of the screen, but he wasn’t paying much attention.  
  
If he wanted to know the answers to all his questions, he would have to straight-up ask Hanamaki—he knew that much. He would have to stop hesitating, and take the initiative… after all, wasn’t that partially how he and Hanamaki eventually got to where they were? It was nothing to be afraid of, they were friends, they had made peace with each other, it was much easier to talk to him, and if Hanamaki had been disappointed, then Matsukawa… would just… have to… make up for it…?  
  
Matsukawa jammed his palms against his eyes, groaning as he rubbed away the last of the sleepiness that remained. He was overthinking things again. He sat up, locked his phone, and got out of bed to start his day.  
  
He allowed himself a little more time to mull over this up until Tuesday afternoon, nearly an hour before volleyball practice, when he and Hanamaki finally had a quiet moment without anyone else around. With the day’s classes finished, both were sitting on a bench in one of the university courtyards, each snacking on a protein bar Iwaizumi had given them earlier, before they were to head into training.  
  
“Hey,” said Matsukawa, feeling an unreasonably nervous swoop in his stomach. Hanamaki looked up in the middle of crumpling his finished protein bar’s wrapper. Matsukawa tapped his wrist and nodded to him and asked, “Um… when did you get the name?”  
  
“Oh. Hm… about four years ago?” said Hanamaki. “On March 1st. I remember trying to look up how your name might have been significant to that day. How about you? What’s that look for?”  
  
Matsukawa was staring at him, stunned.  
  
“March 1st is my birthday,” he said quietly. “Yours is–”  
  
“January–”  
  
“27th.”  
  
Hanamaki stared back, eyes wide. After a moment, they both looked away hastily.  
  
“I guess it’s really…” Hanamaki gave a vague wave of his hand. “Wow.”  
  
_We might really be soulmates_ , were the unspoken words lingering at the end of his sentence. Matsukawa felt a familiar stinging sensation at his wrist.  
  
“Did you ever tell anyone?” he asked as he pressed his hand against the strap of his watch.  
  
“About the tattoo? Nah,” said Hanamaki. “You’re the only one who knows about mine. Not even my parents know. I mean, what would I say? ‘Hey, please don’t disown me, but I got a magic tattoo one day…’”  
  
Matsukawa smiled despite himself and said, “I thought the same thing.”  
  
“Did you ever tell anyone?”  
  
“No, but…” He hesitated, hand tightening around his wrist a little. Hanamaki raised an eyebrow at him. “Well… Oikawa and Iwaizumi found out. I forgot my watch a few weeks back, and they saw the tattoo and asked me about it.”  
  
“Oh…”  
  
“I’m sorry. I don’t usually forget my watch but it was one of those days, so…” Matsukawa looked up at Hanamaki uncertainly when he huffed a laugh.  
  
“What are you apologising for?” Hanamaki asked with a fond sort of smile.  
  
Matsukawa shrugged and mumbled, “I just figured that if you were to ever tell them, you’d want to do so in your own way, and not because of me screwing up.”  
  
“That’s… ah, you dork! I’m not angry or anything,” said Hanamaki, piffing his wrapper at him good-naturedly. Matsukawa swatted it away, a sheepish smile creeping across his lips. “Don’t worry, okay? It’s fine. They probably would’ve found out eventually, anyway. You can’t hide a thing from those two; they’re kind of annoying that way.”  
  
“Can’t argue with that,” said Matsukawa, feeling quite a bit of relief as they snickered together, then fell into an amicable silence, watching some students walk past and waving at a few other volleyball club members who were making their way towards the gymnasium.  
  
“They’re good, though,” said Hanamaki quietly after a while. “Good friends. They haven’t said anything to me about the tattoo, but since they know anyway… I should probably try to clear the air with them a little.”  
  
“They were really interested when I told them about it.”  
  
“Can’t blame them. A tattoo appearing with the name of someone we’d meet ages later… it sounds like something from a movie.” Hanamaki pursed his lips for a moment before saying, “How do you think they happened?”  
  
“Who, Oikawa and Iwaizumi?”  
  
Hanamaki snatched his protein bar wrapper from its spot on the bench next to Matsukawa, and threw it at him again. Matsukawa caught it easily, laughing.  
  
“I have no clue how or why the names appeared,” said Matsukawa. “When we talked about it, Oikawa and Iwaizumi said that we barely understand anything about the world and everything beyond it, and that not everything has an analytical answer. I mean, it wasn’t a _satisfying_ explanation, but… I kind of liked it. It made me feel a bit better about things.”  
  
Hanamaki made a thoughtful humming noise. “That’s something to think about that,” he said. “Did Oikawa mention aliens?”  
  
“Sort of?”  
  
“Bless that nerd.”  
  
“To be fair, Iwaizumi brought it up first.”  
  
Hanamaki cracked up. “That’s even worse!”  
  
“No, it was actually really good!” said Matsukawa, grinning at Hanamaki’s laughter. “Talk to them, you’ll see. It’s weirdly insightful.”  
   
Once they had both calmed down, they lapsed into another amicable silence. It would soon be time to head to volleyball training, but neither really wanted to leave this so quickly. They had spoken easily enough in the past two weeks, but not like this, not to this extent. It was freeing in a way that Matsukawa couldn’t ever remember feeling; making peace with Hanamaki was one thing, but talking about this almost _intimate_ thing that they both shared, was another. He half-wished that they didn’t have volleyball training coming up next—wished they could have a little more time.  
  
“This is nice,” said Hanamaki quietly, and Matsukawa looked at him in slight surprise. “Talking about the tattoos like this, I mean. I’d actually been wanting to discuss them with you for a while, but I never knew how to bring them up.”  
  
“God,” said Matsukawa. “ _I_ wanted to talk about them with _you_ for ages, but I also wasn’t sure how to bring it up until now!”  
  
Hanamaki held out his fist. Matsukawa tapped it in a fist-bump.  
  
“Wait, was that something to celebrate?”  
  
“No idea.”  
  
Matsukawa threw both their protein bar wrappers at him, and Hanamaki swatted them away.  
  
“It’s such a _weird_ thing, you know? The tattoos. I really didn’t know where to begin,” said Hanamaki. “And I’m pretty sure no one else has anything like them, so it’s not like we could ask anyone for advice.” He glanced up to see Matsukawa looking thoughtful, and added, “What are you thinking about?”  
  
“Well, it’s just… lots of people wear watches like we do,” said Matsukawa with a shrug. “Who knows, maybe some of them are hiding the same thing we are? Just because we don’t know of anyone, doesn’t mean our situation is unique.”  
  
“That’s…” Hanamaki tilted his head to the side a little and blinked thoughtfully up at the sky. “Huh. I never really looked at it that way before.”  
  
Matsukawa smiled a little. “I was thinking about it last night, actually.”  
  
“Hard not to, I guess,” said Hanamaki. After a pause, he added softly, “Thanks.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“For… that. It’s a nice alternative view… that we might not be alone with this.” Hanamaki shrugged, now looking embarrassed. “Hell, it was just nice to know that _I_ wasn’t alone in this. None of my friends had anything like it as far as I knew, so I thought I was the only one, and… that sort of thing can be a little alienating, you know? I kept it a secret for ages, and, okay, we couldn’t stand each other at first, but honestly… when I found out you had a tattoo with my name? It made everything feel a little less…” He gave another vague wave of his hand. “A little less lonely. More confusing, but in an exciting kind of way? Am I making sense?”  
  
“Yeah, you are,” said Matsukawa, nodding. “It’s not something I can put into words too well, but I think I understand. It was the same for me too. I mean, originally, I wanted to elbow you in the gut just for looking at me funny, but the fact that you were _here_ , you’re _Takahiro_ … it felt sort of like running into someone I hadn’t seen for a long time. And I haven’t had a boring moment since finding out it was you.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” said Hanamaki, looking pleased, “and likewise.”  
  
“You’re welcome, too.”  
  
They exchanged another grin and fell into another silence. Matsukawa felt a small surge of affection for him; with all the questions he had about Hanamaki’s tattoo and his feelings towards it, Hanamaki probably had a lot of questions for Matsukawa, too. It really was a warm feeling, knowing he wasn’t the only one, knowing he had a friend to weather this confusion and sometimes frustrating lack of answers with.  
  
“There’s the captain,” said Hanamaki, nodding towards the tall senior walking briskly towards the direction of the gymnasium. “We should start heading in, now.”  
  
“Oh… right, okay.”  
  
They stood up and stretched, then collected their bags and pocketed their wrappers to bin later. Hanamaki bumped into Matsukawa lightly and Matsukawa nudged him back. Matsukawa felt his name tattoo pulse a little—he liked that much better than the stinging sensation he had grown so accustomed to—and he thought that Hanamaki’s probably did too.  
  
As they entered the gymnasium and greeted the members who were already there, then headed towards Oikawa and Iwaizumi, who were tossing a volleyball back and forth, Matsukawa thought about all the other questions he had that they hadn’t gotten around to discussing yet… questions he wasn’t quite ready to ask, now that he thought about it; they were rather personal ones, after all. He and Hanamaki might be friends now, but it seemed a little too soon to be asking him so much…  
  
Well, that was okay, thought Matsukawa with a smile as he watched Iwaizumi greet them by spiking a volleyball at Hanamaki, which Hanamaki caught, then spiked back, and they began bickering. They would have more chances to talk about them from now on. Things were good; he had every intention of keeping that going.

—————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Hanamaki!! °˖✧◝(°▿°)◜✧˖°


	14. Deal

A month went by.  
  
They trudged through their busy daily schedules which heavily involved assignments and tests and hours of studying, but sprinkled throughout their weeks, they also had volleyball training, coffee and lunches, and the occasional gaming and/or movie nights with friends to look forward to—usually courtesy of Hanamaki, whose roommate often went out, thus giving them free rein of his dorm. They, and usually Oikawa and Iwaizumi would stay up late into the night laughing over something silly Hanamaki was saying, gently teasing Oikawa, ragging on their latest assignment, or discussing whatever movie they had just watched.  
  
And despite discovering that Matsukawa and Hanamaki didn’t have a lot of interests in common, they eventually found that their differences were actually less of a clash and more of a carefully-found balance. Hanamaki’s general enthusiasm could be somewhat calmed by Matsukawa’s quieter and usually more sensible attitude. Likewise, Matsukawa was slowly learning to push back his more reserved demeanour in favour of Hanamaki’s infectious energy. The two of them were an entertaining duo that constantly made Iwaizumi cringe and Oikawa laugh or yelp indignantly if it was at his expense, and the four of them together became closer friends and could often be found in each other’s company. Matsukawa felt that he was happiest and most comfortable with this quartet, and he supposed Hanamaki might have felt the same way, especially after he had brought up his own name tattoo with Oikawa and Iwaizumi over a game night one Saturday.  
  
“Just clearing the air,” Hanamaki had said, just like he had told Matsukawa he would, pointing to _Issei_ on his wrist. Oikawa and Iwaizumi gave Matsukawa an uncertain look, but he just smiled slightly and nodded reassuringly at them.  
  
“We’re good now,” said Matsukawa, and they leaned in curiously to get a closer look.  
  
“Jeez, Hanamaki,” said Iwaizumi, “your handwriting sucks. Look at Matsukawa’s name here, his writing is so much neater than–” He dodged as Hanamaki attempted to cuff him over the head, and they delved into a brief wrestle. It had been as simple as that, and Oikawa and Iwaizumi really did seem to accept the weird possibly-soulmates thing as though it were something as normal as a rainy day in autumn.  
  
( _Good weird friends_ , thought Matsukawa, laughing as he and Oikawa watched Iwaizumi try to wriggle out of Hanamaki’s attempt at head-locking him.)  
  
Since that afternoon in the courtyard, Matsukawa and Hanamaki hadn’t discussed their tattoos at all, mostly due to how busy they were, and the fact that they were often surrounded by friends, classmates, and teammates. Unspoken, it seemed that they had both reached an agreement that their tattoos were still an intimate thing shared between just the two of them and that they were unwilling to discuss it in the company of others they didn’t know so well, with the obvious exceptions being Oikawa and Iwaizumi, and even then it seemed odd to bring it up too often around them—as far as Matsukawa knew, Oikawa and Iwaizumi didn’t know about his and Hanamaki’s name tattoos appearing on the day of each others’ birthday, and he honestly didn’t feel a need to tell them.  
  
But the feeling from this lack of discussion was a much different feeling from that afternoon. Back then, there was hesitancy to bring it up, but now, it was much more relaxed, like they knew they _could_ talk about it with each other whenever they wanted to, but weren’t in a rush—just knowing they could take their time and go at their own pace. Matsukawa supposed that they were now stuck with each other to an extent but it wasn’t a bad thought, at least from his side. Life was good, and he was enjoying himself.  
  
—  
  
Things stepped up a little one Saturday afternoon—Oikawa had made the bench in a practice match against the volleyball team from a university from Fukushima prefecture.  
  
“It’s only been a few months since we started uni, and he’s the only first year down there,” said Hanamaki as the team members who hadn’t made the starting line-up or the bench—himself, Matsukawa, and Iwaizumi among them—shuffled into the spectators’ seats upstairs in their university’s gymnasium. “Somehow, I feel like a proud parent. We should name-drop him at every chance we get. I wonder if he’ll be used as a substitute today?”  
  
“Ueda-san’s been in good form lately,” said Matsukawa, eyes flickering down to their official setter standing on the court and discussing something with their captain as they waited for the referee, “but maybe Oikawa will get a few minutes in towards the end?”  
  
“He’d have to fight Shigeki-san for the reserve setter spot,” Hanamaki added, now much more quietly so the second-years wouldn’t hear, “but he’s honestly a much better setter than Shigeki-san, and his jump-serve is a lot more powerful too, so…”  
  
“Proud parent,” said Matsukawa.  
  
“Proud parent,” Hanamaki echoed, nodding agreeably. “Look at my boy, all grown up and warming the bench! I raised my son so well.” He grinned when Matsukawa snickered, before adding a touch more seriously, “He looks so nervous though; I haven’t seen him like this.”  
  
“Can you blame him?” asked Matsukawa.  
  
“I guess not.”  
  
They both looked back down at Oikawa, who was twisting his fingers together anxiously and staring hard at the court in front of him—so close and yet so tantalisingly far. Sitting on Matsukawa’s other side, Iwaizumi, who had been staring silently at Oikawa this whole time and gave no indication that he was listening to his friends’ conversation, sighed a little and muttered, “You’ll be fine, dumbass” almost inaudibly, not taking his eyes off him. Matsukawa and Hanamaki exchanged glances, then looked away hastily and fought back smiles.  
  
The match began shortly after. The starting line-ups received and blocked and spiked expertly, and it was hard not to feel slightly breathless after several impressive rallies. Matsukawa watched as his team’s middle-blockers played like they were able to read their opponents’ minds: Ando-san, the tallest, marked the other team’s fastest wing-spiker like he was a shadow; the quiet Takemitsu-san seemed to know exactly when the opponents were going to try to pull a feint on them; Nagata-san was excellent at guessing which spiker the setter would toss to.  
  
Matsukawa couldn’t help but sigh a little. He himself was already pretty good at volleyball and at blocking, and he knew this, but compared to his seniors…  
  
“Hey.”  
  
He felt Hanamaki nudge him, and he looked at him enquiringly.  
  
“Let’s make a deal,” said Hanamaki with a small smile. “We’ll make it into a match this year, okay? It doesn’t matter if we’re in the starting line-up or if we’re substitutes, and it doesn’t matter if it’s an official match or a practice one, but we’ll improve until we’re good enough to make it into a game, both of us. Maybe not at the same time, but whatever. We’ll get there. Let’s make it happen.”  
  
Matsukawa chewed his bottom lip uncertainly for a moment. He knew that making it into a match at some point was the goal of everybody of the team, but now that Hanamaki had put it into words, his previous thoughts seemed even more overwhelming and the thought of being one of the six to stand on the court, even more out of his reach. Being good enough to challenge everyone else for a place… having blocking skills rivalling that of the already-impressive seniors… doing so in just his first year? He would have to step it up, and though he had always intended to do so, would he be able to–  
  
He was nudged out of his thoughts by Hanamaki digging an elbow into his ribs again. The exasperated smile on Hanamaki’s face said that he knew what he was thinking.  
  
“You’ve already got a good read of the game, and it helps that you’re so tall,” he said reassuringly. “You probably just need confidence. Anyway, we don’t have to be on the court right away, but just… eventually, you know? Let’s _try_ , at least.”  
  
“Am I that obvious?” Matsukawa asked. Hanamaki shrugged.  
  
“You tend to overthink sometimes,” he answered simply.  
  
Matsukawa gave a little snort of laughter; he could hardly argue with that. He glanced briefly at Iwaizumi, who was still watching the match and staring intensely like he was searing every movement into his brain.  
  
“Okay,” said Matsukawa quietly. “We’ll both make it into a match this year.”  
  
Hanamaki held out his fist, and Matsukawa returned his fist-bump  
  
“It’s a promise, then,” said Hanamaki, flashing him one of those warm smile-smirks that were honestly the cause of most of Matsukawa’s problems. Matsukawa couldn’t keep a grin from spreading across his own face— _damn_ , he really did get pulled along by Hanamaki’s energy sometimes.  
  
“It’s a promise,” he echoed.  
  
And with that, they sat back in their chairs again and continued to watch the match. Matsukawa’s wrist was pulsing softly; he rubbed at it absently.  
  
(He didn’t notice Hanamaki doing the same thing.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Matsukawa!! °˖✧\\(≧▽≦)/✧˖°


	15. Reliant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~holy crap has it already been 7 months since the last update TIME FLIES I wish my writing did too~~

It didn’t slip from Matsukawa’s attention that these days, his wrist’s name tattoo would often pulse gently, especially when Hanamaki was around. It was a welcome change to the almost painful stinging feeling he used to feel, but Matsukawa wondered what it meant, and whether he was perhaps meant to do something about it.   
  
“—ukawa. Matsukawa! _Hey!_ ”  
  
Matsukawa snapped to attention. “What?”  
  
From the opposite side of the volleyball net they were practising with, Hanamaki rolled his eyes and bounced a volleyball against the floor impatiently and said, deadpan, “If I hit a serve into your face because you were spacing out, I’m not buying any apology-snacks, you know; I’m not counting it.”  
  
“Oh.” Matsukawa smiled slightly. “Sorry.”  
  
“What are you thinking about?”  
  
“Nothing too important.”  
  
“ _Matsukawa_.”  
  
“Hanamaki.”  
  
“Fine. Have it your way.” But Hanamaki was failing at fighting down a grin as he walked backwards towards the rear line of the court. “But I’m gonna jump-serve now, whether you’re ready or not.”  
  
“Are you just all talk? Come on!”  
  
Hanamaki’s jump serve, powerful but still lacking in aim, rocketed straight out of bounds, to Matsukawa’s amusement.  
  
The two of them had doubled their efforts for volleyball ever since their deal, now nearly two weeks ago, partially inspired by Oikawa.  
  
From his bench debut against the volleyball team from Fukushima, Oikawa had been substituted late into the third set to test his skills as a setter, and had impressed the coach enough to make the bench again in their next practice match against a university from Iwate prefecture, with another substitution late into the second set. As a result of his brief but noteworthy moments in the spotlight, Oikawa had managed to gain a small (but rapidly growing) fanclub in the process thanks to his flashy skills and his charmingly good looks.   
  
“ _Typical_ ,” Iwaizumi had said with a groan.   
  
But it was obvious that he was proud of what Oikawa had accomplished so far. Iwaizumi had also stepped up his game in training, and was working hard to make sure he was reaching all the team’s setters’ tosses with even more accuracy, and that his spikes were even sharper and faster than usual. It was hard not to feel inspired by his and Oikawa’s efforts, and more often than not, Matsukawa would walk out of a rigorous but fruitful training session, proud of everyone’s progress, and just generally feeling really damn _good_.  
  
“I wish there were more hours in a day,” Iwaizumi was saying with a sigh as he, Matsukawa, and Hanamaki waited outside the gymnasium for Oikawa, who was discussing his performance in training that day with their coach. “I want more time to practice serves _and_ spikes.”  
  
“And do our assignments,” said Matsukawa with a sigh of his own.  
  
“ _Shhhh_ , we don’t talk about homework here.” Iwaizumi swung his leg out at him lightly and Matsukawa dodged, grinning, and nearly bumped into Hanamaki, who was texting someone.  
  
“Sorry, guys! Thanks for waiting!” said Oikawa cheerfully as he finally emerged from the gymnasium. “Coach was saying I was doing well, and gave me some pointers about who I toss to. Hey, wanna grab ramen for dinner? I’m so hungry, I could eat a whole restaurant’s worth.”  
  
“That depends. Are you treating?” asked Iwaizumi.  
  
“ _Iwa-chaaan_.” Oikawa pulled a face at him. “Mattsun, are you coming?”  
  
“Sure,” said Matsukawa. “But _are_ you treating?”  
  
“ _Don’t take his side, Mattsun!_ Makki, back me up!”  
  
“Uh, sorry,” said Hanamaki somewhat sheepishly, looking up from his phone. “I’ve got a… I’m catching up with a… friend for dinner.”  
  
“It’s two against one!” declared Iwaizumi victoriously. He and Oikawa began bickering.  
  
“You know,” said Matsukawa to Hanamaki, “if you came along and helped us gang up on him, Oikawa might _actually_ treat us to ramen.”   
  
Hanamaki smiled. “Sorry, but maybe next time.”  
  
“Bring your friend along.”  
  
“Oh… no, that won’t work out. Not yet. Uh, forget it.” Hanamaki’s face actually tinged pink a little, and he hastily looked away. With a funny spasm in his stomach, Matsukawa thought about the guy Hanamaki had been flirting with back at the café when they still weren’t getting along. He knew that he and Hanamaki hung out sometimes, but Hanamaki didn’t talk about him very much, and they hadn’t ever been introduced.  
  
“Okay,” said Matsukawa. “Maybe next time.”  
  
“Yeah, maybe.” Hanamaki still didn’t look at him as he shoved his phone into his pocket. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow or something. Hey, you two! Did you hear me? Don’t give Matsukawa a hard time; it’s tough, being a third wheel, you know. Get a room!”  
  
Matsukawa snorted with laughter, Oikawa made an indignant squawking sort of noise, and Iwaizumi sharply turned his attention to Hanamaki as he swiped at him, yelping, “ _Fuck you!_ ”   
  
“Don’t worry, I can hold my own, I think,” said Matsukawa, grinning, as Hanamaki dived behind him as though he was a shield, steering him around as Iwaizumi tried to dodge him.  
  
“Good,” said Hanamaki. “But if the PDA gets too much, just throw water on them.”  
  
“ _Urgh_ , come on, Iwa-chan,” said Oikawa over Iwaizumi’s promises to kick Hanamaki’s ass during their next training session. “The restaurant’s gonna fill up. Mattsun?”  
  
“Wait, Hanamaki has to make his escape first.”  
  
“Please trip Iwaizumi over if he comes after me,” said Hanamaki. And then after a beat, he let go of Matsukawa and sprinted away, yelling over his shoulder, “ _Thanks, you’re the best!_ ”  
  
“Not that I’m surprised, but you taking his side really sucks,” Iwaizumi said to Matsukawa with a disgusted expression on his face that Matsukawa knew was far from real.  
  
Matsukawa just shrugged as Oikawa grabbed Iwaizumi’s collar and began pulling him in the opposite direction. “We’ve formed an alliance, I guess? It’s nice to have someone be a third wheel with.”  
  
“Look how far you’ve both come,” said Oikawa, pointedly ignoring the third wheel comment. “You went from nearly picking fights with each other, to watching each others’ backs. It’s so nice, you know?”  
  
“At our expense. Don’t give them too much credit,” said Iwaizumi as Matsukawa snickered. “Come on, let’s hurry up; running after that jackass made me hungry.”  
  
“ _Well_ , it’s your own fault you like picking fights, Iwa-ch— _ack! More fighting will make you hungier!_ ” And the two were off bickering and play-fighting again, and the thought of Hanamaki’s absence from the dinner was pushed aside.  
  
It stayed with Matsukawa on-and-off for the rest of the evening, though.

 


End file.
